


Liebling Gebrochen

by orphan_account



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anime/Manga Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter Names are Quotes from Faust, Crossover, Gen, Mentions of Characters from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mikasa the Puella Magi, Multi, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 25,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it's alive; then they have the parts and they've lost the whole, for the link that's missing was the living soul.”<br/>-<br/>After a tragedy that leaves humanity with only fourteen survivors, Mikasa Ackerman makes a contract with a creature named Kyubey in order to redo everything and save her friends lives. As she progresses, however, she finds more differences than similarities between where she was and where she is now...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Is Gone Becomes Reality

The odd machine continued to whirl in the sky, a shrill echoing throughout the walls.

It had been merely hours since its initial descent, appearing in the center of the Wall Sina, before it had released a loud giggle that had torn the wall brick by brick. Humanity held their breath as the military police quickly moved into action to dismantle the floating monstrosity. Some sort of upside down top, with gears twirling underneath a dress as blue as the twilight sky in the background, a (head? They had dared to not even think it remotely human) hung low, pale, eyes obstructed by twin cone bindings. It did not even have to flinch, just let out its sonorous giggle and hundreds fell.

The military police, in its entirety, continued to live and fight for a short three minutes.

Titans were a constant reminder of being ruled by something bigger than themselves, but they were conquerable, there was a possibility of success. This being was a reminder of the finality of human life.

The original thought was that it couldn’t move, there was no way it could, something of that size. It would destroy Wall Sina and then disappear, they all prayed with closed eyes. Eyes that quickly opened, of course, as they heard heavy footsteps shake their small, small world. From the walls that had so protected them, descended fifty-meter titans. Already with their nose to the ground, humanity was kicked once more.

The smallest mercy was when the titans did not aim for them, only charging and pawing uselessly at the creature that giggled once more. In an odd display of fraying color, the titans unravelled, some shrieking, some utterly silent, as they were consumed by smaller forms (human sized forms? In horror, no one dared to even breathe). The menace that had plagued them was taken down so easily, without the slightest hesitation or difficulty. And then it moved.

Gears spiralling, it turned further outward, as the garrison moved into action to relocated the few, precious persons who had survived the first wave. As the humans clustered together, moving further toward what they deemed shelter, it only made it easier for the smaller (familiars, the Wall Worshippers cried, clinging to their beads) to pick them off, tearing into them in a savage manner they had not expressed with the titans.

The (witch! Blasphemer! Shrieked the Holy Church of the Three Walls) cared not for the individual lives that were blown out, only for mass destruction, craving it as one would crave air. It trailed its sleeves downward, fracturing Sina’s buildings, made of pure concrete, like a child throwing dirt in the air. Crumbs of it crushed the iron wires propelling the men and women forth and, with them, crushed the garrison and those they were rescuing.

With them, fell the second military branch.

Wall Rose was quickly taking a turn for the worse, but it was more difficult than its sister, being of more area, and it took longer for the witch to fully make its rounds. The wall fell in a counter-clockwise motion, releasing more titans who fought in vain against the apex predators that consumed them effortlessly. With the foresight to escape, many had pressed toward the Wall Maria, throwing themselves at the gate, screaming for the (non-existent) garrison to open the gate, to have the titans eat them rather than suffer this fate.

From all angles, the survey corps rose, as the Rogue Titan exposed himself and reached toward the witch, not having thought it through, how far up it was. The witch didn’t move, but the familiars did, surrounding him with ribbons as he shook and roared and struggled to get free. The captain soared past, his swords trained on the one circling the titan’s neck, but the blades went straight through, with no indication of any harm done to it. The familiar turned to him, human only in figure and outlining, and he freezes, the only time he’s ever hesitated, as he sees strawberry-blonde hair and an easy smile in the twisting shadows. She catches him by the arms, runs her fingers lightly through his hair, and with the same giggle he missed so desperately, kissed him until he could no longer breathe.

Levi fell limp in the arms of the shadow of Petra Ral, and she ripped his head off of his shoulders messily, dropping his body into the rubble of humanity below them.

The ribbons continued to wind around the Rogue Titan’s neck, without her assistance, and, as he snapped his teeth fruitlessly at them, they noticed a blur of blonde and brown uniform sailing past them, straight toward the witch. They had no time to waste, however, so they wound the bands tighter and tighter, caring not for the witch they came from, only for the pleasure at seeing the struggle in the boys eyes.

Armin Arlert aimed directly for the neck of the witch, with the only conclusion that the neck must be its weak spot, there’s no other possibility. The second his blades connected, they sunk in, and he let out his held breath.

It turned, lips wide in a grin, leaned forward, and bit him in half.

There was no time for reaction, no quick escape, no sudden loop hole and he was suddenly minus his lower body. The blood didn’t even splatter on its lips, only dripped slowly, and it leaned forward and finished him off.

The Rogue Titan let out a howl of sorrow as the cords binding him suddenly found purchase in his flesh, biting down and slicing through him. He screamed as the witch licked the last of the blood off its lips, the last image on his mind.

With the fall of the Rogue Titan, a shot rang out, an ordered retreat. A futile retreat, as there was nowhere for them to escape to, but their original three hundred soldiers had been quickly cut into a mere thirty and Commander Erwin could not suffer to watch them fall even further. A lone soldier resisted this order, continuing to circle the witch, cutting through fabrics but not risking getting any closer to its mouth. Angry tears fell from her eyes, burning paths down her cheeks as she sliced off a finger from the witch.

Familiars pursued her, shrieking in rage at the damage, but stringy arms suddenly wrapped around her waist, pulling her away with an overabundance of gas. Resisting only briefly, Mikasa Ackerman went limp as she looked up into the eyes of Sasha Braus, contorted with vicious horror and fear. Sasha bit down hard on her already bleeding lip, not restraining the waterfall of tears that wouldn’t cease as she delivered Mikasa to the other fourteen left.

Commander Erwin leads them downward, into someone’s crawl space, and Sasha chokes back a sob as she’s the one to push a torso off of the twin doors leading down to it. Mikasa stares blankly ahead, Sasha and Captain Erwin being the only ones she recognizes, and, with a feeling that encompases her whole heart, realizes the fate the rest of her friends must’ve met. Hunched over, they spread out, each person individually attempting to cope with the stress.

The two girls stayed close, both extremes of the same emotion as one vomited out of fear and the other clutched a black scarf so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Sasha had pulled the two of them to the furthest corner, far away from the others, as they all looked at each other helplessly. They dared not speak.

A soft, childish voice arose, only to Mikasa’s ears. “Humanity has fallen, Mikasa Ackerman.” Every vertebrae in her spine aligned as she sat up taller, looking around for the source of the voice, knowing no one in the room previously carried such a tone. She met the eyes of an odd, furry white creature, who didn’t blink as its pink eyes gazed at her. “I wouldn’t recommend speaking aloud to me, the others won’t think so highly of you.”

She swallowed heavily, the tears that burnt her eyes forced back as she dealt with yet another unknown. Her hands twitched toward one of her broken sword-pieces, curling around the handle. Her mouth raises in a grimace as she concentrates on thinking loudly as the creature had, though her chest rises and falls with a mild panic. “Who are you?”

“I am Kyubey. It’s nice to finally be able to meet you, Mikasa Ackerman.” He (or, she assumed it’s a he, in regard to its tone of voice) turns around in a circle a couple of times, before curling up.

“Why are you talking to me?” She’s not going to beat around the bush, she’s debating losing her lunch all over the stuffed animal and her hands shake every time she glances at her empty-eyed commander. “This is the final step to insanity, isn’t it.” She turns her head to the side and tries to even out her breathing.

“To be frank, I would like to make you an offer.” His tail swishes and he tilts his head. “You can change all of this, Mikasa Ackerman.”

A sob broke free of her chest and Sasha turned to face her in surprise, even though she, herself, hadn’t stopped crying. Though her hands shook, she patted at Mikasa’s eyes with the ends of that scarf she always wore, trying to smile or cheer her up, but coming up short. Aloud, she let out one word: “How?”

“I have the ability to grant you any one wish, Mikasa, if you accept my terms.” He closed his eyes and she heard the terms ring out, echoing hollowly in her chest. “Become a puella magi and fight witches like the one out there, and I will be able to grant you any wish.”

“I could... fight those things?” Her pupils shrunk, and she gripped her sword tighter, staring up at the ceiling, imagining the monstrosity yielding to her blade. “Could I bring them back?”

“No, you can’t bring someone back from the dead. That’s the only condition.”

“I won’t blame you if you do.” Halfway frozen, Mikasa’s head turned to face her commander, who looked from her sword to her face. “I release all of you from military duty, consequences be damned. If you are going to go through with it, if you... take your own life-” The tortured look in his eyes resumed, but a single tear fell as he looked away from her.

“He can’t see me.” Kyubey interjected, and his tone almost sounds impatient. Her wet eyes cut back to him. “If that’s what you thought was going on. Now, Mikasa, what is the wish that will make your soul gem shine?”

Mikasa closed her eyes under the press of Sasha’s hands still dabbing tears away from her cheeks, but she responds, curling her arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders. “I want to go back before any of this happened. I want to be capable of saving Armin, of saving Eren, of saving every person who suffered tonight. I want to be strong enough to fight.”

Curling silver metals burst from her arm and she stares at it blankly as it swirls until it forms a circular plate. A...Shield? She was only momentarily distracted before a white-hot pain burst through her chest and her arms moved quickly to cup around herself. She grit her teeth through it all, knowing it must be the price of the contract, the mind-numbing headache. Feeling pressure on her palms, she looked down in alarm, finding an oddly gold-encrusted ruby in her palm.

It pulsed and glowed as she looked up at the white creature, then at Sasha, who stared at her in confusion. She lifted the coil of her scarf up and unbuttoned a single button on her shirt, like she’d done it million of times before, pressing the gem to her collarbone. It compressed, yielding to her wants, and stuck to her skin in a whole other shape. Unable to see it herself, she traced her fingertips over it, trying to understand the situation.

Her body knew what to do, however, and her fingers moved down to the shield. Eye-like structures unclasped, and sand began to flow backwards, as the shield wound itself counterclockwise, the gears whirring. She closed her eyes, she can do it, she’ll save them all... She can protect them, she will protect them...

“Your contract is complete. Your wish has overcome entropy. Go forth and release your magical power, Mikasa Ackerman.”

She closed her eyes.


	2. Honesty is More than Not Lying

Mikasa awakens to the warm comfort of cotton sheets, heart pounding in her chest. _Ah, so it was all a bad dream..._ With a smile and a slight sigh, she cups her hands around her forehead, calming herself down with the familiar gesture. Of course it was all a dream, what else could it be? Giant machines and all of the elite military being so easily killed... There was no way it could’ve been real. Cool metal presses a small dent into her finger and forehead, and she pulls her hands away, her heart beat picking up again.

A small silver ring, offset only by the brightest gem she’d ever seen, colored bright red. Archaic symbols curved around the metal, and she twisted her hand around the read it all. Though it was of no language she could recall learning, the meaning resonated deep within her. _Mikasa Ackerman_ , written in curly, unfamiliar lettering, made her blood run cold. Something dripped onto her shirt, she led the trail up her neck, over her cheek, and found her damp eyes leaking tears.

There had been no mistake. Before her eyes, everyone had been slaughtered- and she’d only been helpful in tearing off a handful of dress scraps from the witch. But, that creature... It had promised her a way to fight that end... Was this it? She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to even out her breathing again. She could fix this, she knew what she was up against this time. Mikasa turns herself out of the bed, taking in her surroundings.

Her memory had never been the best, but everything in hindsight suddenly seemed crystal clear. This was the lodging the 104th training squad had stayed in right before... She bolted upward, the realization dawning on her. The titan’s invasion of Trost was tomorrow! She marched toward the door, before pausing, glancing over the rest of the girls still slumbering. The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, casting its orange haze over them all.

A pain blossoms through her chest, recalling the only fourteen survivors of the Survey Corps. She cuts her eyes away from them, feeling guilt rise in her throat. She hadn’t been able to save a single one of them- Sasha had saved her at the last moment possible. _I won’t leave that debt unpaid._ Crossing through the door, a light breeze lifts her scarf, a chill running down her spine.

“Now, who would you be?” In the same unnerving sense that he had appeared before, Kyubey appeared to her, his small paws hitting the cement in an almost comical ‘pit-pat’ sound. “I don’t believe I recall contracting you.” His voice echoed in her head, and she can feel a headache coming on.

It takes less effort than before to respond, but the mechanics of mentally doing so confuses her. “You just did. I’m Mikasa Ackerman, of the Survey Corps-” Looking around, she realizes that her status no longer applied, so far in the past. “-Correction. Of the 104th training squad.”

“Well, this is strange. I don’t believe I’ve ever met a Mikasa Ackerman. Of course, before this moment.” He tilts his head to look at her, taking her in. “You’re smarter than the rest, at the very least, you hide your soul gem. But you’re rather newly contracted... Even stranger.” His mouth doesn’t move at all as he speaks, and she shifts uncomfortably at the acknowledgement.

“Ah, well, I suppose this is where we part then-” Mikasa tries to move around him, hopefully to move toward the male’s room to talk about this odd phenomena with Eren or Armin. Preferably, both.

“You have no clue what you’re doing.” He cuts in front of her, head tilted. It wasn’t a question, he could clearly read it in her thoughts and body language, but she froze up, instantly defensive.

“Of course I do. I will save Eren from being eaten in Trost, prevent the Female Titan from surfacing, and then eliminate _that witch._ ” She had mapped everything out perfectly in that split second- it would be the perfect outcome. She could keep Eren safe, keep Armin mentally stable, save those hundreds in Trost, in the Wall Sina...

“No, you won’t be able to.” Kyubey’s tail swishes and she can almost detect a hint of... Smugness? She frowns, narrowing her eyes at him. “Your soul gem, and, therefore, the powers that come with it, are limited by your emotions and how much magic you’ve used. You accumulate impurities from using that magic. And, you intend to rely on such powers to achieve these goals.”

“Then how do you fix the impurities?” This new power was obviously flawed, but she didn’t mind fighting for it- anything would be better than the half-bitten corpse of- The sliced pieces of- Mikasa quickly disconnects that train of thought.

“Strange. Really, really strange. I’ve never known a magical girl to ask all the correct questions.” His eyes close and another chill runs up her spine. “You gather things called grief seeds from beings called witches- which you seem to already have encountered. The grief seeds will remove the impurities from your soul gem.”

“Alright, then I will have to locate a witch, then.” She nods to herself, thinking of the large, grotesque image of the last witch she’d seen, figuring that something of that size would be hard to conceal. Perhaps she could take one out during the Battle of Trost, when she had her blades. The shield wouldn’t do much good in any offensive position, the best being her knocking something over the head with it.

She can hear Kyubey's sigh, and she freezes again, wondering what snide comment he was going to let out. “I can ascertain that you’re of moderate intelligence, but you haven’t even drawn out your soul gem for hunting. Mikasa, to be able to quickly identify a witch anywhere, you need you soul gem outside of its encasement.”  His tail swishing almost seems derogatory, and she wrinkles her nose in his direction, thinking about kicking the animal. “I’m going to ignore that loud thought out of the apathy of my cardiovascular system, by the way. When your soul gem shines brighter than before, you know that you’ve caught a witch!”

“It’s a lot simpler than you made it sound.” She deadpans, and Kyubey takes a step back, eyeing the odd girl. “I kill it after I’ve caught it. I reap the grief seed. I clean my soul gem. It seems to be a very simple process.”

“You’re rather... open to this system.”

“Isn’t it what already occurs?” She’s done speaking with him, and she continues moving past him, the inflection in her voice unceasing. Her head’s starting to pound from the mental effort to keep up a conversation telepathically, and she continues outloud.“It’s the same with human beings and cattle, with titans and humans. It’s an old system.”

 _What a strange human being._ Kyubey thought to himself, watching as she disappeared around a corner. _Just when I think I start to understand them..._

In retrospect, she should’ve asked more questions, like how to let her soul gem out, but she was smart, she could figure it out. Flexing her fingertips, Mikasa studied the ring, which her soul gem had compressed to. _It can’t possibly be that difficult._ She makes a lightly gripped fist, twists her ring around, and, yet, nothing. Feeling more than a little frustrated, she takes a seat against the wall separating the first girl’s cabin and the second girl’s cabin. “Ah, maybe Armin might know what to do.” She trails off, casting her glance back toward her shared room.

A pair of curtains swished back into place and she stood up straighter, knowing someone had been observing her. The sun had settled three-fourths into the sky, and it shared with her its warmth, like a thick blanket over her. The exhaustion she felt was surreal, and slightly obnoxious. _I should just close my eyes for a second..._

“Mikasa, what do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes snapped open again, meeting eyes that chilled her warm body. Annie Leonhardt crouched in front of her, an odd expression on her face. Eyebrows drawn, eyes narrowed in the slightest- it took Mikasa a handful of second to process the emotion coming off of her. _Concern...?_ But the Annie she knew was definitely not fond of her, and their only acknowledgements of one another were subtle nods when the other did well in training.

She takes in this new form of Annie, scanning her for some indication as to why she acted so strange. With a flame suddenly growing in her chest, she sees the small ring on her finger, the one she’d used to cut herself to trigger her titan form, curled with the same strange archaic lettering. _No, I can’t trust her anymore- Not after what she’s done!_ Was this truly correct- for her to distrust her for her actions as the Female Titan in the future? “What does it look like I’m doing?” Her voice wavers in the slightest, and she bites her tongue, her weakness exposed. She begins to stand up, to face her head on, but her knees buckle. _What’s wrong with me? Why... Why is it so difficult to move?_

“It looks like you’re wondering how you clean your soul gem.” Annie’s voice is solid, and she sighs heavily, raking a hand through her hair.

When they make eye contact, she smiles in the slightest.

 


	3. To Think is Easy

Mikasa's reaction was nigh instantaneous. If it weren't for the slowly spread numbness in her limbs, _damn them, she could barely move,_ she would've shot up, moved away, anything. Annie, alone, was singlehandedly #4 in the top ten of their squad, the Female Titan, and had taken down the Special Operations Squad in half of a heartbeat. She was dangerous, unbelievably so, yet her body wouldn’t move. _This was before she became the Female Titan, right?_ Why was her mind having such difficulty processing what had been effortless mere seconds ago? The same letterings on Annie’s ring, the same script, printed out _Annie Leonhardt_. It proved her to be another puella magi. 

But, was that a good thing...?

“Hey, stop that.” When Mikasa’s thoughts had drifted away, Annie had somehow come closer, sitting on her heels in front of her. She tried to move her lips in response, a simple “what?” would suffice, but her throat felt dry. Words died and dried on her tongue, sitting heavily in her mouth. The other girl gently hit at her cheek, trying to keep her eyes open. “You must’ve used one hell of a spell for this to happen, Ackerman.” She freezes as she hears someone start to pass by them, but Mikasa is still motionless. The moment passes and she lets out an audible sigh of relief. “Look, I’m going to be nice, just this once, because I know you’re worth saving, okay? You’re new at this, so don’t expect me to just cough up grief seeds at the snap of your fingers.”

This is easily the longest Annie has ever talked to her, yet Mikasa’s almost completely unresponsive. She tries to blink in a thankful manner, but she’s not entirely sure as to the function of the grief seed, nor her intentions. _Why would I be worth saving? What am I being saved from?_ She’s pulled away from her thoughts when cold fingers uncurl her fist, the only sensation she can detect. Annie does something, she doesn’t know what, but her hand glows a pale blue before her soul gem rests in her own palm. Mentally, she recoiled. The gorgeous scarlet of the jewel had soured, darkened to an almost burgundy.

Annie’s cold hands pressed against her forehead, pushing it back. There was no explanation for this, and no way for the other girl to question her. Her hand coiled behind her neck, and she produced an aquamarine in her palm. She tilted the two gems together and, Mikasa watched with wide, confused eyes, the impurities from her own soul gem pressed themselves from carmine to cyan. The warmth that had settled in her bones dissipated, replaced with rapidly awakening feeling, leaving her panicked as realization dawned.

Something had been viciously wrong, earlier, when she had sat down in the warmth of the sun. It was early morning, the sun had barely risen, and it was almost bitterly cold. Mikasa’s eyes darted to Annie’s dark soul gem, her own hands shaking as she pulled hers away. “Thank you...?” Was that the correct response? It was certain the elder girl had cleaned her soul gem, but had she harmed herself in the process? There was no certain way to be sure.

Adjusting the way she sat, Annie watched her silently for a long time. It would be another hour or two before anyone rose for roll call or even for breakfast. Reiner and Bertholdt, she knew, would be the last to leave, giving her more time alone with Mikasa. It was obvious that she was newly contracted, and even more obvious that her wish must’ve been something extremely strong. Already, she had accumulated almost an entire soul gem’s worth of impurities from the wish alone. “I need to go witch-hunting soon.”

There. She put the opportunity out, knowing Mikasa would take it. She wasn’t one to ask outright, but she also wouldn’t strand the other girl like this. It would all cause her problems later on, anyway. “Would you mind if I tagged along?” Mikasa’s voice was scratchy, as if she hadn’t spoke for months, and she concluded that this was a side effect of letting her gem get polluted.

“...Just don’t get yourself killed.” Annie ran a hand through her hair, taking her soul gem in her palm and placing it at the base of her neck. Mikasa traced her eyes over it as it compressed, leaving a pattern of a seven-pointed star. She held her own semi-impure soul gem in her palm, debated on what to do with it, before following what Annie had done.

It came naturally, unlike summoning her soul gem, to move it under her scarf and just below her clavicle. Her eyes followed the slowly forming shape, processing the newfound knowledge. It was a large infinity sign, the length of her thumb and three fingers wide, painted the same ruby color.

The symbol did not raise particularly positive feelings within her.

Annie was already several strides ahead, knowing that the other trainee would follow behind her. Kyubey, she would admit, was an utter asshole when it came to new puella magi. Mikasa could’ve died if she hadn’t seen her leave her bunk- and he left her high and dry without knowing how to even summon her soul gem. She would give that weasel a good kick the next time she saw it- Mikasa was definitely not her best friend, but she was someone she respected, and Kyubey’s attitude hit her below the belt.

“What magic do you specialize in?” She’s the first to break the silence.

“...Pardon?” Mikasa’s voice betrayed her confusion, but that was fine. All she had was a mind full of confusion and rapidly developing heart ache from the situation.

Being a tutor had never been her strong suit, and her people-skills were well under par, so Annie struggled to find a question that was neither rude or confusing. “...What did you wish for? Your wish decides your magic.”

 _Ah, that makes a lot more sense._ Mikasa thought toward her shield, the clasping eyes and twisting components. She couldn’t piece together what sort of “magic” that might yield, but hopefully it was one she could use to her advantage. “I wished to redo an event- to protect those I love.” That was putting it vaguely, but there was no need for Annie to panic over something she, herself, would soon take care of.

She would have it all under control.

“...Temporal magic, then. Possibly preventative and defensive magic.” Annie made a small whistle through her teeth. “All three are very difficult to use.” Respect clearly shown on her face, eyebrows raised in acknowledgement. Mikasa had obviously put thought into her wish, and the benefits showed. Temporal magic was the strongest form, beating even her spatial magic. It was a lot rarer as well.

“Do you know anyone else that could teach me to use it?”

Annie grunted in response, her eyes cutting away from the other girl. No, no one else could teach her temporal magic because she was the only puella magi around. “This is my hunting territory. There’s no one else.”

“...So you're the only one allowed to kill witches here.” It’s a statement, not a question. She’s sick of questions. Everything was unexplained and she felt too uninformed. Territories appear to have already been established before she set back in time. Faintly, she wondered if she could go back before Annie had contracted.

Mikasa received only another grunt in response. It was another long five minutes of her taking in their surroundings, the same damn dormitories and bunks she passed by every day. They were headed to the mess hall, but she couldn't help but wonder if any of the food had been set out already. “You're my pupil now. My territory might as well be yours.” Annie’s voice was quiet, almost thoughtful, almost as if the words had accidentally slipped out of her mouth without her permission.

“Thank you.” This was the appropriate response. Territory was a word associated with something coveted. Annie was a self-reliant and self-centered person, and it worked for her in the best way. She'd never depended on anyone, never helped anyone out as far as Mikasa could remember. It’s difficult for her to fathom the same person showing her the ropes of this odd new life she'd created for herself.

Annie had a soft smile form, a gentle pull on both sides of her mouth. “You're welcome, I guess.” She attempted to turn away, to hide the smile and weakness from Mikasa, but she has already seen it.

Mikasa pulls her scarf closer to herself, suddenly cold again. The last time she'd seen that smile, Annie had been delusional.

And then she had turned into the Female Titan.

 


	4. To Act is Hard

The cafeteria is slightly chilly when they enter it, and it becomes blatantly apparent that they were not there for breakfast. It had been locked, before Annie had waved her hand over it and, with the same dull blue that had shocked Mikasa out of her numbed state, it had swung open. It was magic, that was obvious, and she tried not to be too much of a bother as the veteran pulled out her soul gem. Following her lead, Mikasa echoed her, cupping her palm around the mark, then slowly curling her fingers. It obeyed her promptly, and the jewel sat oddly in her palm.

She flinched when it suddenly pulsed, reflexively pulling her hand away. With wide eyes, Annie darted forward, catching it by the tip. Letting out a loud sigh, she deposited it back within Mikasa’s hand. “Don’t let anything happen to that. From what I know, if your soul gem breaks, your wish undoes itself.” The look in Annie’s eyes conveys that she knows the statement to be true, and she nods to herself with faraway eyes. “...It glows when there’s a witch around.”

Not the most in-depth explanation, but Mikasa wasn’t about to be picky.

Gazing around, she can’t seem to locate any large humanoid fixtures wearing dresses or small silhouettes that mirrored her dead comrades. The witch couldn’t possibly be anywhere around.

Annie doesn’t both with explaining anything any more, assuming actions speak louder than words. Weaving her way around the long tables and benches, she suddenly crouched when her soul gem lit up. Blinking the stars out of her vision, she ducked under the table to squint in the dark shadow it cast. A grief seed stuck vertically into the bottom of the wood, the cage-like contraption glowed in response. She plucked it out, risking drawing forth familiars, to place it on top of the table, glancing in Mikasa’s direction.

“Ah, so this is a grief seed.” Mikasa had kept a sharp eye on Annie the whole time, old habits (or would it be future habits? Time shenanigans weren’t something she could sort out linearly) weren’t dying hard. All she could see when she looked in Annie’s eyes was the female titan with her fists curled in front of her, ready to fight. The female titan climbing the wall to run away from Eren, eyes wide in panic. She crossed the floor with little difficulty, as she had poked her head into the kitchen, still scouting for abnormally gigantic, upside-down women. With her head over Annie’s shoulder, she stared at it expectantly.

When nothing occurred, she grunted in disinterest and backed away.

Letting out a sigh of relief, not too comfortable with Mikasa’s proximity, Annie took the time to transform, to the utter confusion and mild horror of her pupil. There was a flash of bright light, bright blue light, that Mikasa had to squint away from, then Annie is suddenly dressed in a completely different outfit.

A dress in the same matching aquamarine as her jewel, it faded from dark to an icy light color by her knees. Material bunched on one shoulder, leaving the other exposed- as well as her soul gem. It’s a cute dress, sure, but the functionality of it seems to be lacking severely. Was she going to fight such a huge thing in that dress? Mikasa couldn’t help her scrutiny, looking her up and down.

Annie gave a simple twirl, the material flying up in a manner that makes the other girl duck her head away in respect. Looking up, however, she notes two dual swords. Scouring her knowledge of weaponry, she comes up with a vague description of what type they are, from some old book Armin had read to her- two rapiers? The hilts seemed weak, though it provided enough protection for her hands. It didn’t seem like a good choice for battle, highly impractical, if she could say it aloud, but Annie was her mentor.

A startling realization came over her and she cut her eyes to Annie. “I don’t have a weapon.” The other just rolled her eyes, tossing her one of her swords. With another swish of her dress (Mikasa noted that they seemed to actually fall out from under it, how could she store so many in there?), another one took its place in Annie’s hands. Mikasa took the time to adjust her grip, holding it outward like a spear, a small frown on her face.

More bright light exploded outward, and she looked over at Annie, stone faced and unflinching, as a brand of bright red arose in the foreground of a yellow glow. It didn't burn her eyes, but it was utterly unpleasant to look at. When her eyes adjust, she traces the red lines- they seem to form some sort of torso, tilted to the side. Her mentor seemed uncaring, her stride even as she moved forward. “This is a labyrinth. Witches and familiars hide in them.”

Grunting in acknowledgement, she watched as Annie disappeared through the light. There was nothing behind it, Mikasa noted, just a hollow light that Annie had apparently just walked straight through. With her own slight hesitance, she placed her foot in it, feeling it immerse in cold, then shut her eyes tightly and made a gentle hop through it.

In an experience that she can only liken to a very quick blink, everything surrounding her changes. The room is miles upon miles larger, and her heart beats out a heavy tempo as she realizes that she has no clue where Annie is. Breathe in, breathe out. Find the witch, kill it, take the grief seed. Simple enough, so why is her breathing so shallow? The floor is brown tile, cut in flower-shaped patterns, leading her forward.

Two girls twirl their way up to her, and Mikasa pauses, looking at them, never lowering her sword. They open their mouths and elicit forth sounds that sound like no language she should know, but she recognizes them, translating them. _“A guest, a guest! Come and drink, now, come and drink!”_ The longer Mikasa stares at them, with both of them having hair that is reminiscent of dyes from the Wall Sina, one bright pink and the other vivid red, something shakes her and something else clicks.

She should not disobey these two.

Familiars, of course, they even look like that bigger witch’s familiars, all girly and frail. But their fringe covers their eyes and they are sickly pale, unlike the shadows that the bigger witch had utilized. Notes were pinned to their foreheads, but they contained none of the symbols she uncannily recognized, just drawings- like a child’s scribble, yet it also mirrored the torso-like pattern she’d seen earlier. Ribbons bound their arms, legs and necks and they seemed trapped in maid outfits, with unwavering smiles and tea sets balanced on opposite arms.

When they pull her arms, she goes along willingly, the faint idea that they might rip her arms off in their eagerness flitting through her mind. Forward, forward, forward they pull her (and her sword- she still hasn’t let it out of her grasp) over the tile until they reach a bridge. Mikasa can barely take it all in- a bridge completely composed of refracted light, a bridge woven of every color imaginable, curves itself into her view and it send shivers down her spine.

Her nightclothes (that’s right, why hadn’t she changed out of them yet? Her mind feels foggy) cling to her uncomfortably as light dew emerges in the labyrinth. Ah, they’re crossing the bridge now, to the apple orchard so far away. The two familiars- no, they’re just little girls, right? They’re so much smaller than she is, and they keep giggling. The little girls pull at her sleeves, tugging her forward, the pink one occasionally letting go to giggle into her cupped palms.

The apple orchard rushes at them, and Mikasa doesn’t even wonder as to how. It seems natural, in this whimsical place, for lines of trees to suddenly surround you. It is obvious that, like an arrow to a treasure, they orchard leads them all to a little table, the tea sets already out, and a small, bonneted doll sat in the center. _It’s a tea party._ Blankly, she looks around, trying to remember why she was there.

 _Of course, I must’ve been invited._ The thick smell of tea, God, was that black tea? She’d only ever smelt it once, on the Captain’s desk. It was the most expensive tea, worth at least a pound of salt if the merchant liked you. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head to bask in the scent. Oh, they were already at the table, how lovely. The two girls seated her, and stood on either side of her.

Mikasa tilts the cup with her left hand (how’d it get to her hand? She doesn’t quite recall picking it up), looking into it. Ah, definitely black tea. She raised it to her lips, taking the time to just experience the heat coming off of it. Across from her, another guest sat limply in her chair. Blonde hair pinned back into some sort of bun, in a dress fit for the party, and she felt a dull ache in her right wrist.

With a grip that was denting the handle, her body had held onto the rapier like a lifeline. Like a douse of water down her back, she realized the deception, felt a sting on her neck. There was no tutor to guide her through this, no manual or weasel-cat animal for help. If she acted suspiciously, there was no doubt that the two familiars (so close to her that she could feel what she assumed to be their breaths) would attack.

She was never good at working under pressure, but she must make do.  A quick analysis proves that there is nothing else she can use as a weapon- the apples would be of no use and the trees were useless without her 3DMG. She also knew no concise way to kill the familiars- Annie hadn’t elaborated before and she surely wasn’t going to be able to now. It was plain to see that the witch was no more than half a foot from her, and only the size of about a foot.

Mikasa needs to focus on the familiars first.

They’re staring at her, their lack of eyes making up by the heads turned toward her and leaning in so close, and they must expect her to drink the tea. Tilting the cup to her lips, not drinking, yet giving the impression of doing so with closed, pursed lips. Puzzle pieces snapped together in her mind, quickly enough to almost hurt.

Annie drank the tea. She is either dead or unconscious.

With that thought, Mikasa over-dramatically tipped her chair back and let herself fall, risking the damage. It would give her some distance, not enough to run away, but enough to give her more time to think. They would put up a fight if she tried to leave- They righted her chair immediately, calling out for " _One more chair! One more guest!"._

Through squinted eyes, Mikasa observed as the pink one exploded into giggles, racking through its whole body. The red one reached across the table to slice herself a piece of cake, biting into it with reverence. There would be time, she could only hope, in between now and the next “guest”, but she played dead for a heartbeat longer.

Opening her eyes fully, rapier still in her grip (their mistake, she was a definite fighter), she lunged forward at the pink familiar, the one closest to her, knocking her chair backward in her wake. It was not a single thrust, no, she made sure it was dead- one, two, three, four, five- she pulled it out from its chest. With it still standing, both hands under the guard of the rapier, she charged forward, aiming for the paper pinned to its forehead.

With multiple chest wounds, it had not fallen, but the second the blade grazed the paper (not even puncturing it yet), it had dematerialized in a puff of smoke. One down, two to go.

From its maid outfit, the other had changed into an elaborate dress, not unlike the one Annie was wearing. Ruffles set on a red dress in high boots, some sort of thin glass ball was on its chest, in the hole the dress allowed. There was no time to dwell on this, as the familiar summoned up a large arrow, charging toward her.

Pulling away, Mikasa heard the witch on the table let out a roar, ribbon-arms flailing in the direction of her fallen friend. Ducking to the left, the arrow soared over her shoulder, but familiar kept its grip on the giant spear, unlike what she was expecting. It pulled it back, putting a small cut in her shoulder when she was unable to dodge in time. Annie was the priority- she couldn’t let her be consumed like Armin had- like Eren had- like...

The red familiar fights with a close range and that makes her job easier, but it was competent and fast. She had no time to go on the offensive, no time to aim the sword toward its forehead. She would soon be backed against the tea table if she kept dodging and pulling away. When a lunge found particular purchase in the same small cut, biting closer to her neck, she dropped to the ground, rolling under its arm.

Popping back up, she tried to form herself in a proper charging stance, but it was of no use, there was obviously not enough time. That didn’t matter, though, all that mattered was- She quickly cut the rapier upward, just as the red familiar flashed toward her. With a sigh that seemed to shake her whole body, Mikasa nailed the drawing on its forehead.

Another aggravated roar tore through the air. Behind her, the apple trees wilted and their apples blackened. The rainbow bridge dulled, trapped in monotone black and white. Annie didn’t even flinch. Turning on her heel, Mikasa faced the table once more and, on top of it, the bonneted doll in a blue dress, thrashing about. It was small, about the size of her forearm, nowhere near as large as the last witch she’d seen.

Quick analysis: it had ribbons composing most of its body, its ribbons may be its only weapon, its deathly close to Annie. It’s bonnet prints out the unearthly letters once more, typing them out and then erasing them. “Candeloro,” Mikasa whispers to herself, trying to place why it sounds so strange. The letters erased again, reprinting a more human name. Squinting to make out the smaller font, she read aloud once more:

“Mami.”

 

 


	5. The Hardest Thing In The World Is To Act In Accordance With Your Thinking

Mikasa has no time to dwell on the name, or the fact that the large yellow bib connects to nothing, but she does dwell on it. Her mistake. It was a beginner’s mistake, she knew, and she shouldn’t have made it- the Survey Corps would be ashamed of her right now. Candeloro had had the time to throw her coiled ribbons (they resembled fists- was it was throwing a temper tantrum?) toward her, her quick reflexes the only thing that ensured that she wouldn’t be crushed like an ant. Mikasa has to keep moving backwards- the doll keeps advancing without a breath or time to reposition herself.

It’s small, small enough for her to be able to kick it, but she didn’t like the idea of letting one of her limbs in its range. A price tag swung as it lunged, one, two, one, two. Legs that weren’t legs, but ribbons coiled into cones, took exaggerated steps forward and forward. It had no forehead-markings like the familiar- no head to be seen, in fact, no exposable weakness. Mikasa’s knees are rapidly becoming sore from having to catch her as she jumps back. The rapier will be of little use to her, she needs a blade with sharp edges for slashing- she simply can’t afford to stab at Candeloro.

 _Annie, please, wake up._ Her ankle twists as one of her back-steps was misplanned and she stepped too harshly on her foot. Seizing the moment, Candeloro advanced, and Mikasa could only stumble backwards. A ribbon snapped forward, out toward her ankle, and she finds her breathing labored when she only has a bare half of a second to pull it out of the way. Although she knows how horrid a mistake she’s making, she turns away from the witch, pulling out into an adrenaline-fueled sprint toward the tea table. “Annie!” Mikasa calls out, her lungs protesting to provide enough oxygen to shout in such a manner. “Annie, wake up! Annie, please!”

She refuses to die here. She outright refuses.

Her footfalls feel heavier as she makes it to the table, slamming both hands on the table, throwing the table over, throwing Annie’s chair over. She has no time to analyze, she’s no good at working under pressure, she just has to wake Annie up. Light tip-taps let her know that the witch is almost there- she has no time for this. To Hell with how angry she’ll be, Mikasa grits her teeth and bashes her fist into Annie’s chest. _Wake up, wake up, wake up!_ She remains limp, arms akimbo on the floor after being thrown from her seat.

Mikasa just needs more time. Just a little more. Five minutes, God, please, and she could get out of this alive.

She has no other weapon, just this shitty sword that’s only sharp at its point and protects her hand. What’s the point in an unmarked hand if the rest of you is torn off? _This situation isn’t fair. Isn’t fair in the slightest._ Annie’s not waking up, so she tries harder. She’s certain she hears something crack, but can’t afford to check.

Turning away from Annie’s body, she finds herself knee-to-bonnet with the witch, who had advanced when she’d turned around. _She’s grown in size._ Mikasa feels sick at the thought. There’s no where to back up to, no one to help her out, and the element of surprise is long since out of the window. Her shoulder is bleeding profusely, her ankle is swollen, her heart is racing, she can barely breathe...

There is no more room for running away, all that’s left in her fight-or-flight response is fight. She charges at the witch, and misses by mere centimeters, the blade catching in the tile, the edge just barely touching its neck. Her heart catches in her throat as the yellow ribbons tie themselves around the sword, taking it easily from her white-knuckled grasp, and breaking it in half.

She had no weapon left.

Lower lip firmly held between her teeth, she fakes to the right and then tries to dart to the left, but her ankle doesn’t support her weight correctly. Falling onto her elbows, she can feel what she assumes to be one of the ribbons (or both, she doesn’t want to look back) coil around her leg. It bites into her skin, she can feel blood rise and the ribbon’s outer coiling stings her- like it’s covered in something acidic.

In one fluid movement, she flips her body around, catching Candeloro in surprise (can she read its emotions? It’s difficult to do so without a face or eyes to read). The ribbons freeze for half a second, she can only assume they loosened remotely, and she jerks her leg out from its grip. Though not completely ruined, she can feel her heartbeat in her leg, pulsing in time with the droplets of blood rolling down it.

Both hands reaching behind her, she grabs the chair she’d previously sat in by the upper rails (thanking whoever was listening that it was made of metal) and slamming it in front of her. It was a makeshift form of defense, but she’s in no position to complain. She has a moment to breath and clear her mind, now that some distance has been put between the two of them. Candeloro roars again and Mikasa can’t help but swallow uneasily. The chair is her best bet for an offense, now that she analyzes it. Arcing it over her shoulder, she slams it into the witch.

Like an accordion with all the air squeezed out of it, it deflated, landing on its back with its ribbons askew. With it down temporarily, she takes the time to breathe and specifically aim a chair leg at its torso. She brings it down over and over, the same manic pace she had adopted with the familiars, because she has no clue what she’s doing and her life is on the line. Annie was dead now because of her inattention (how could she be so stupid to hesitate in following her?) and this horrible creature.

The ribbons hadn’t moved in a while, but the witch hadn’t dematerialized like the familiars had, so she propelled herself to the other side of the chair. Moving the chair so that each leg held down an individual ribbon (both the ones that resembled arms and the ones that resembled legs), Mikasa stomped her foot down over and over on top of its bonnet, then its chest. When it continued to struggle (the tips of the ribbons flailed and she bared her teeth in frustration), she angled her foot at its collar, between where a head should be and what appeared to be a false neck.

In the same explosion of yellow and red light that had brought her into the labyrinth, the witch convulses and gives into itself, and the chair loosens in her grip. The scenery doesn’t fold away until she completely lets it go, but she has no time to pay close attention to the unraveling tile and shriveling orchard. Crawling over to Annie’s body, she leans her ear toward her chest, her own breathing paused in her throat.

There was no heartbeat.

Mikasa’s hands immediately curl to perform chest compressions, yet she catches herself, eyes watering. Chest compressions would do no good at this point- images of Hannah pumping Franz’s chest (all that remained of him) in vain, right before she was consumed by a titan.

She has no immediate memory of witnessing it, but doesn’t consciously think too hard about it. Her leg is bleeding profusely, and she’s going to have to tell the squad nurse about how she sliced her pajama pants, was cut on the neck, and got criss-crossed wounds on only one of her legs. Struggling to stand, she casts her shadow over Annie, still looking for any signs of life. It was nothing she was unused to, losing comrades, but was Annie truly just a comrade?

The old betrayal of the female titan burned in her chest, yet it wasn’t as fresh as it should be- the transgression hadn't even occured yet. With frightening clarity, she can only gaze down at the relaxed face of an innocent. _Who ever wants to kill people?_ Tear drops fall onto the veteran puella magi’s cheeks as Mikasa lingers over her. To turn her back to Annie would feel like an even worse betrayal than to have abandoned her in the beginning.

A soft metallic sound echoes behind her, and she freezes, thoughts only to the witch, her hands reaching out for the chair, only to be met with air. The surrounding area is void of the unfamiliar labyrinth's materials, and they are surrounded by wooden benches and tables. She lets out a long breath of air, but tears haven’t stopped rolling down her chin, and her shirt’s collar is stained with them.

Turning away for only a split second to scan the area (Annie never did tell her how to kill witches- this could be another deception), she finds a small object, shaped like a peach pit, coiled in silver with a long pin through it. She picks it up carefully, with her thumb and forefinger, then brings it around so that she can view both it and Annie. Her soul gem glows faintly underneath her scarf, illuminating a bright red path along her collarbone.

 _So this is a grief seed._ While she was the one to kill the witch, she feels undeserving, even as she dips the onyx jewel under her scarf and presses it against her own gem. Swallowing, she curls three fingers under Annie’s neck, rolling her head to the side. Her soul gem is black, with only slight hints of midnight blue. If anything, Mikasa’s guilt swells at having used the seed first.

She tilts the pin toward the star at the base of Annie’s neck, watching as it absorbed the impurities, no matter how far she pulled it away. She sighs in relief. At the very least, Annie’s wish would stay functioning. That was the least she could do for her.

Mikasa can’t think of an easy way to tell the others about this, or about Annie, or about her wish, but all she could hope to do is explain the situation to Armin and Eren and hope for some help. She bends down to pick the smaller girl up, but as her hands go to her neck to support her, Annie’s eyes open wide and she takes in a deep breath. In shock, Mikasa jerked her hands away and pushed herself backwards.

Annie pushes herself to a sitting stance, her eyes wild and unfocused as she takes in the cafeteria. “Wh-where the hell did the witch go?” She’s panicked, that’s transparent enough, and one of her hands remains clamped over the base of her neck as her eyes dart from bench to bench.

As if to make up for Annie’s previous lack of heartbeat, Mikasa’s own heart makes up for it threefold. It’s nothing short of a miracle, her waking up, and she’s in no position to question it. She touches Annie’s shoulders gently (they aren’t on good enough terms yet for her to embrace her), trying to get her to turn around.

When alarmed eyes met her own, Mikasa mustered up the most reassuring smile that she could with heart palpitations and declining adrenaline. “I took care of it, don’t worry.” The grief seed, having been placed off to the side, rolls its way back into her view. She pulls Annie’s hands out of the death grip on her frivolous dress, uncurling her fists and placing the grief seed into her palm. “Here, it’s yours now.”

Annie’s hand closes around it slowly, eyes shaking as if she were inclined to cry. She takes the Mikasa’s hand when she offers it, pulling her up. Though they quickly let go of each other’s hands, they remained at a close distance as they walked toward the door. Mikasa leans heavily on Annie's shoulder, flinching as they advance toward the nurse. Neither of them mention when tears started to fall out of Annie's eyes.

 

 


	6. By Seeking and Blundering, We Learn

The nurse received quite the scare when Mikasa’s unconscious body was flung against her door. Annie had attempted to heft her up to carry her, but wasn’t strong enough to hold her dead weight. The steady, soft breathing against her neck was the only reassurance that she wasn’t dead. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she had bit the dust- her night clothes were soaked bright red with blood that continued to pulse. After quickly transforming back into her normal clothes, Annie became increasingly aware of the other girl’s open wounds that were ruining her own clothes.

The best she could do was drag Mikasa by the shoulders across the camp and then shove both of them against the medical cottage. Her hard breathing paralleled Mikasa’s quiet huffs, as if she were dreaming and not comatose from bloodloss. She’s in no mood to lie to the small, thin woman that meets her in the door frame, even though it was inevitable. Without a word, she just shoves their two tired bodies at her with a little less than a grunt.

In a flurry of movement, the caregiver has thrown Mikasa onto a bed and located dressings, setting them next to her bedside before analyzing Annie. She knew bruises lined her ribcage and she has handprints on her swollen cheeks, though she doesn’t recall exactly how she got them. She’s amazed her nose hasn’t bled yet, but chalks it up to titan healing. She limps her own path to a bed, noting her protesting joints. _What the hell happened to her?_

The sun has risen just barely into the sky, marking only about half an hour for their witch hunt. It feels impossible, with her back against the scratchy blanket, that she was so easily taken under its spell. Her cold fingers probe to her neck, feeling the raised bumps of a quickly-fading witch’s kiss. The same fingers move over her eyes, pressing down as if to erase the memories.

She was the strongest puella magi in the military territory, that was true, but was it anymore? She had been utterly useless, leading Mikasa into a fight that she had no idea how to work, then losing herself to the labyrinth. Annie grinds her palms into her eyes until she sees pinpricks of light.

Again, she’s failing Mikasa. She adjusts herself to sit properly, though her chest aches and Mikasa’s blood from earlier makes her clothes cling to her skin. She’s taken her eyes off of her too many times today for it to sit well in her heart. The woman peels her red scarf off of her for better access to the thin cuts on her neck, folding it and putting it to the side. Annie winced in sympathy when the nurse cuts off Mikasa’s pants leg. Watching the metal run so close to the wounds made her nervous.

There should be no reason for her to be nervous, however. They barely knew each other, between glances and nods and names on papers. _That’s right- I shouldn’t be worried about her. Why was I?_ Being puella magi aside, forming such heavy ties could not end well on either of their ends. _There’s still the mission. How did I forget about the mission?_

Yet she knows exactly how she forgot the mission. She got lost in the concerned shine in Mikasa’s dark eyes and her shaking shoulders as she had loomed over Annie’s slowly-awakening body. As she had handed over the grief seed that had taken a near-death experience to acquire. There was an unpleasant familiarity in how Mikasa regarded her, and she didn’t know whether it rose feelings of friendship or her dinner in her.

Mikasa suddenly lurches against the nurse, who hurried to hold down her shoulders to prevent her moving. Her eyes blink open too quickly, a hazy look in them. It wasn’t until she started to struggle against the caretaker that Annie realized the severity. A hallucination or a nightmare, it didn’t matter, as Mikasa shrieked once and then kicked the nurse onto her back, dashing for the door. The nurse struggled to feet to keep the door closed, to prevent her from leaving and hurting herself further (or, worse yet, someone else), but Annie was faster.

With protesting limbs and bruises comprising her entire body (bruises apparently didn’t qualify as enough of an immediate threat for her healing, as they continued to throb), she threw herself onto Mikasa. The door only opened inwards, thankfully, so Mikasa had struggled for a few seconds, allowing Annie’s weight to knock her against it. They slunk to the floor, the panicked girl fighting (and winning, for the most part, as she seemed to know exactly where Annie’s bruises were) against Annie’s heavy hold as she turned her around to meet her eyes.

“Hey, Ackerman, if you die right here because you’re dumb enough to fight everyone trying to help you, what’s going to happen to Eren and Armin?” Mikasa’s eyes darted about wildly before setting dead-center on Annie’s. She wasn’t good at using pathos arguments, but she hoped Mikasa would just stop hitting her worsening bruises.

Her breath ghosts out when she does stop beating on her, but catches once more when a scream tears itself out of Mikasa. Annie’s instincts dictate she cover her ears, and she follows them without actually thinking over it. Mikasa doesn’t move anymore, just stares at her with a look that feels like hands around her heart and shrieks like she’s actively dying.

She doesn’t know where she is, but it’s cold and she hurts all over. Her arms are bound, someone’s holding her down. Her neck is bare and against wood flooring- where did her scarf go? She’s looking without really seeing, loud and unwanted memories flooding behind her eyes. _Oh God, oh_ God _, no not Eren please don’t kill him please I’ll fix-_

The nurse, having righted herself quickly after Annie tackled her, brandished a sedative. As Mikasa stilled herself (though, not ceasing her unintelligible bawling), she found a vein, the silver of the needle disappearing under her skin. She quieted, though her eyes stayed locked with Annie’s, mouth open as if still silently screaming.

Shaking, Annie folded her index and middle finger around Mikasa’s throat. _She still has a pulse._ Unnerved by her unfocused stare, she slowly rose off of her, trying to keep her still in her sight. What was that saying her father had always told her? _Ah, “don’t turn you back to the bodies”._ It seemed appropriate enough in this situation, and the situation before that.

Turning her back to Mikasa resulted in both of them sustaining injuries and some sort of horrid trauma on her part. Annie grits her teeth and tries not to vomit from the pain when she tries to rise, having to indignantly crawl on all fours to get to the bed. From experience, she knows that the contusions have shifted from light green to pitch black- as to be expected, as Mikasa seemed to have been fighting for her life in whatever hallucination she had experienced.

Annie hadn’t noticed the nurse move her charge back into bed or redress her wounds- Mikasa had reopened them when she'd struggled. Looking through her, Annie hadn’t noticed the woman approach her. “...she had the wounds?”

“...Excuse me?”

“How long has she had those cuts?” The woman is patient, nodding her head in some sort of odd display in sympathy. Annie can’t understand the motion, so she doesn’t put too much thought into it.

“They’re recent. I think she got them about an hour ago.” The lies need to start here, she realizes, and hopes that Mikasa stays unconscious enough for her to explain what the story would be. She swallows, making eye contact with the woman, who had started to apply pressure on the cuts, but had turned to face Annie for the conversation.

“The lacerations are rather deep for any sort of accident and the pattern on her leg implies some kind of torture.” The nurse wrinkled her nose. “You have contusions on your face and under your collar in the shapes of fingerprints and hands.” They’re simple statements, but had enough accusation to let Annie know what she thought.

“We were attacked.” _Cut your eyes to the side for sympathy, draw them back slowly in an attempt of bravery._ This was an act she knew well. “We were trying to see if the cooks had set out breakfast yet, and someone knocked me out. I don’t know what happened from there.” _Bite your lip, draw your eyebrows together, tug a corner of your mouth down_.

“You weren’t able to see who it was?” The nurse showed no sign of disbelief, just shocked acceptance that played along the small lines on her face like piano keys, pushing them further in.

“No- I was grabbed from behind. They grabbed my face and threw me against a wall.” _Concise memories always sell._ "I blacked out after that."

“...You should get your rest. Such a traumatic experience for two pretty girls...” The caretaker’s words seem more to herself as she dabs sweat of off Mikasa’s brow. Her dressings were soaking at a slower pace, so she must’ve put some salve on it. “I hope she saw who did it so that we can bring that bastard to justice.”

Such harsh words struck a cord in Annie, who had to stave off a cough in her surprise. This kind of lying, to good people who didn’t know better, always hurt the worst. “Yes, I hope she did, too...”

 

 


	7. We Do Not Have to Visit a Madhouse to Find Disordered Minds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay.

Mikasa awakes to a scenery warmer than any she’d ever felt. The girl’s cabin was always bitterly cold, with the cotton sheets hung in front of the windows and doors making for poor insulation and even poorer blankets. Instinctually, she curled deeper into the pillows.

Her dreams had been out of focus, more of a dark pantomime than anything concrete. She’d could have sworn on her life that she would awaken to a dimly lit basement with woodprints traced onto her eyes from rest. The dream was loud, with a clock’s ticking and a machine’s whirring blurring out any other sound. If she truly was in a crawl space, then it was the most comfortable crawl space she’d ever been in. Grumbling, Mikasa rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, moving up and stretching her hands over her head.

An IV drip disappears in the bend of her elbow, leading to a bag of fluids beside her.

A searing pain shot through her shoulders and she let out a hissed breath through her teeth. Biting her tongue to hold in a flurry of curse words that had come immediately to mind, she cracked one eye open, tilted to her shoulder. It’s covered in a nightshirt, unlike her military uniform that she was expecting, so she opened both of her eyes, warning bells going off. It’s soaked a maroon red with blood and there’s a scabbed-over gash when she pushes the sleeve back. _That’s not from the witch, though is-_

The memories rush back, of the second, different witch with the bib and the two human-like familiars. She’d reset time and gone back, yes, so these wounds were not from the top-like witch, but from the doll-like witch. She doesn’t recall having relocated herself to the nurse’s cabin, however, so she must’ve been brought. When she stretches her leg, her foot brushes against something on top of the blanket- right before she feels the lesions that make a checked pattern on her leg.

Pushing herself farther back in the bed to get a better look of her surroundings, she takes in a brown and yellow mass on her bed, curled up in a ball. Across from her, Annie lay dreaming in her own cot, fingers curled into the pillow with a distant smile on her face. A mostly secure area, she thinks to herself, now moving to check on the heap on her bed. She can’t move very far without her joints being move to soreness or her scabs protesting, but she manages to prod it, taking a moment to understand that it’s moving, breathing. Human.

She supposes that she can take comfort in that fact, as everything in her past mental 24 hours has been so unfamiliar and alien to her. She pats at the person, unidentifiable by their position, glad for this slight relief. As her eyes continue to focus, she finds the yellow to be hair, a deep blonde that she finds familiar. Her hands tremble as she recalls the last of it- watching Armin be snapped in half as she uselessly tried to prevent his fate.

He shudders and his breath catches- her hand pulling away from him- as he rises with a soft yawn and a scrunched nose. _Armin_. Mikasa feels lightheaded suddenly, happiness bubbling up in her. She doesn’t mind that her wounds split open and sting her, or her IV holding her back, she just has to cross the several inches between them. Her fingers close around his shoulders, holding him in her grip, pulling him closer to her.

Oh, she can feel guilt well up in her, like a poison sloshing around in her chest. _I always protected you._ She rocks him in her grip, tears stinging her eyes. _How did I fail to that time?_ She was truly not as strong as she boasted, she knew that already, but she shouldn’t have allowed them to send Armin away. Eren had no chance to stay behind, she knew, he’s “humanity’s hope” and she couldn’t argue against that.

Her train of thought pauses. _Where’s Eren?_

Armin’s voice startles her and makes her fingers pause on his jacket. They’d been tracing over the training squad patch over and over, trying to remind herself that she has a different route this time, she has a choice. “Mi-Mikasa?” He’s startled, which makes sense when she thinks about it. She’d never acted like this to him, always sucked it up when she got scrapes on her knees when they played together. His eyes widen considerably and he seems to take her in, with a vague look of amazement. “You’re awake!”

“Of course I am.” She lets go of him, slightly embarrassed, wiping her eyes with the harsh material of her sleeves. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Her leg feels cold with pain, but her shoulder burns.

“The nurse told me you’d been out since this morning- from before practice.” Armin’s fingers lock with each other, and his eyes seem to be permanently drawn to the corner away from her. “What- what do you remember?”

It’s a vague question, one she’s not sure as to how she should answer. Her mind reels, trying to come up with the answer- does he know about before she reset? Is this about the witch? She reviews the context of the question with narrowed eyes. It must be about the wounds. “Annie and I were attacked this morning.” That’s not a lie, outright, but if he pursues the topic she’ll have to.

His eyes darken and she shivers, various memories of his twisted looks running through her mind. _How could I let him get like that?_ “Did you see who did it?” His eyes lock onto hers, no longer guiltily looking away.

Mikasa bites her lip, knowing that she was a horrible liar when it came to on the spot questions. A flaw that seems like it would have plenty of room to be corrected in the future. “Two tall people and a short one- I think they were from Sina, as their hair was all dyed.”

“What colors?” His eyes are narrow, far-away. She knows this Armin, the one torn apart from betrayal and coup schemes. _It’s too early for him to be this way, though._ He shook his head, as if to shake the thoughts away. “...Sorry. How do you feel?”

He smiles and Mikasa hesitates in the slightest. Armin never smiled so much, a contemplative and thoughtful look in his eye more often than not. This smile appears to border on sympathetic, and she notes that he doesn’t ask if she fought them away. “I’ve been better, but it’s not that bad.”

She also notes that no one else is there.

His eyes trace over her shoulder. _Not that bad, huh,_ he thinks with a slight grimace. “Mikasa, you’re still bleeding!” Alarmed at the rapidly spreading bloodstain on the blanket, he applies pressure to where he assumes her leg is. The nurse hadn’t told anyone the extent of her injuries, just that they showed signs of torture and she had lost a lot of blood. Mikasa shakes her head and throws the blanket off of her, staring at it.

She’s an unnerving picture, a warrior inspecting her own wounds.

 _I wonder..._ Her eyes glance at her fingers, then her leg. Pulling the fluids bag closer, she bends at the waist, her fingers ghosting over the cuts. Focusing, pressing her tongue against the back of her teeth, she focuses on healing her leg, in the same miraculous way that Annie had unlocked the cafeteria door.

Her fingers jolt away when a bright red circle surrounds her bed, decorated with little cogs that clicked together and spun. The circle immediately disappears, leaving half her leg scarred and the other half openly bleeding. Her soul gem, offset in her ring, remains its bright red, unaffected by the small use of magic.

Armin only stares at her, lips parted in utter confusion. He’s calculating the situation, adding things together, but nothing applies, nothing sticks together. There are too many variables, too many un-answers, from Mikasa, the strongest person he knew, being attacked to the sudden aura that had briefly enveloped them. She falls back, tired, and he lurches forward to catch her, cradling her head to keep it from smacking against the wooden headboard. “Wh-what was that?”

She waves him off, her fingertips hitting his cheek and falling off, exhausted from a combination of lack of adrenaline and blood loss, and he catches a small silver band around her finger. She curls back into her pillow and he tucks the blanket in. _Oh, Mikasa_... He trails off, looking away from her. _What have you done?_

 

 


	8. Who Are You Then?

Mikasa wakes up to someone shouting her name and her being shaken. These criteria, of course, make her rise in a panic, hands grappling around for some sort of weapon before her eyes even open. Her arm is restrained, she notices, blindly looking over at it without genuinely looking at it. It takes moments for the situation to return to her, the fight and the aftermath. She’s still in the nurse’s cabin, of course, and her arm is held by an IV. It’s the third time she’s woken up in a panic, and she’s getting truly sick of it.

It takes even more time for her eyes to focus on her assailant, who has both of his hands on her shoulders and is tossing her about, crying out her name like her eyes weren’t open and looking at him. His voice matches Eren’s perfectly, tone for tone, but the visual he provides gives her difficulty in identifying him. The first thing she notices is that he’s tan in a natural way, gained from birth and even, dark like he’d never been inside. His eyes are a mixture of green and blue, wide in panic and searching her own eyes.

Yet the way he speaks makes her doubt herself.

His face is structured the same way, his eyes the same size and same distance apart, with the same angry expression. She yawns, tired even though she’s slept at least three times in this same day. “...Excuse me?” Her voice seems to shock him out of his trance, and he pauses in the slightest before holding her out at arm’s length.

“Mikasa!” So they know each other, that is clear. “Holy shit, Mikasa, what happened?”

Mikasa casts her gaze about the room, trying to figure out who this strange twin is. Armin is crouched in the corner, eyes trained on her. He gives her a weak smile, nodding toward the man on her bed.

_Oh. This is Eren._

But not _her_ Eren, that much is obvious. Her Eren was pale, with yellow eyes, and was a lot thinner. This Eren was a lot healthier, a lot more aggressive, and seemed to care a lot more for her.

“Ah, hello, Eren.” She manages a tiny smile, completely unnerved by this realization. _What else has changed from before?_ She almost doesn’t want the answer.

“Don’t ‘hello, Eren’ me! You’re bleeding everywhere! Er, were bleeding everywhere!” Eren’s voice holds panic, so palpable that it makes her heart race just a little. This boy will be the death of her, that much is certain enough. He’s a lot more aggressive than he was before, and he’s shaking her IV along with her, making her flinch. He lets go when her face contorts in a grimace, alarmed. “Did I hurt you?”

This level of concern is unfamiliar to her, especially since it seems to early for him to look at her with worry like this. At this point, he should be angry with her for her high marks, declaring that he was an adult and not her little brother or son. _And, when I took my eyes off of him, he died_. “No, I’m fine.” It’s a bit of an exaggeration, since the IV site pulses in pain, but she’s dealt with worse.

He lets out an audible sigh of relief, falling back onto his haunches, scanning her. “Who did this?” His expression is only able to be defined as a barely restrained anger, his lip curled to the side and his eye twitching. Obviously, this Eren is impulsive. It makes it that much harder to protect him.

“Neither of us got a good look at the three of them.” His eyes flash, thoughts drawn to when they were nine. “They were all Wall Sina guys- one had pink hair, one was blonde, and the other had red hair.” A shadow casts over his eyes.

“They shouldn’t be that hard to catch, walking around with fabric dye in their hair.”  Eren’s voice is a snarl, and she recoils. This situation is being mishandled, she knows, and he might just enact his revenge on every poor blonde or red-haired soul. “I’ll kill them, I swear I will.”

It’s this voice that is so familiar to her, the same voice that said “I wanna murder them titans” with a shaky, unnatural grin. This psychopathy was normal for him, but with this Eren, it just came off as aggression. He lacks conviction. Mikasa lowers her voice, making eye contact with him. He adopts a more serious look. “It would be rather difficult to kill dead men, Eren.”

His eyes light with triumph, as if finding satisfaction with them dead. “I knew you two couldn’t just get attacked and do nothing about it!” She sighs, glad that he wouldn’t go around carrying his murderous rage. Remembering something, his spring- green eyes jump to her blanket, at the dried blood that had seeped through. “How are your wounds?”

“They’re fine, I’m healed.” From the corner, she can see Armin narrow his eyes. She knows how unrealistic it would be for such wounds to heal in this amount of time, but Eren doesn’t know what injuries she’s received, so he can’t ask too many questions. She knows that she can expect a barrage of questions from Armin later, but she has to get out of this cabin quickly.

Annie is no longer in her cot, meaning she’s fully healed. The attack on Trost would commence tomorrow- Bertholdt and Reiner wouldn’t dare do anything without Annie there for back up. “Eren, would you mind getting me my uniform? I’ll go back to training today.”

She won't reveal their secret just yet- they didn't even know about titan shifters yet. If she had her way, keeping Eren safe, humanity would never know.

“Oh, right. Give me a second- I’ll be right back.” His manner of speaking is oddly formal as well, missing his heavy, off- country accent. When he leaves, she visibly exhales, throwing the covers off of her leg to examine it again. With a slight of her fingers, the circular aura and cogs appear again, clinking together but seemingly flat. Her leg speeds through the process of healing, from scabbing over to jagged scarring to nothing but faint lines.

“How are you going to explain that to the nurse?” She hadn’t noticed Armin advance toward the bed, but he’s looming over her, eyebrows drawn and scanning her used-to-be wound.

She knows what he means- he doesn’t care about what the nurse will think, he just wants answers, logic. So she gives him that answer. “I healed myself. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.” He looks distrustful and it wounds her worse than the cuts all over her.

“It’s nothing bad, is it? You can always-” Armin is still evaluating her, trying to figure something out. The small ring on her finger must be some sort of clue. _Was it a gang thing?_ He’d seen Annie wear one too.

Eren opens the door, her clothes folded neatly in his arms. Her Eren had never been one for chores, had no clue how to fold clothes. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He’s teasing them, she can tell, but she can’t help the panicked feeling that it’s another inconsistency- _were the two of them together?_ By Armin’s flushed face, she can safely assume that no, they weren’t.

She shouldn’t have felt so disappointed.

When she took the clothes from him, they immediately cleared the room, uncomfortable in another unfamiliar way. They were so close before, changing her clothes in front of them had been nothing. Where had this distance come from?

No, thinking that way was wrong. It doesn’t matter how close they are to her, she’s still going to protect them.

The nurse appears only briefly, coming to remove her IV, though not before casting a wary eye at her wounds, unsure if they had been so shallow before. Though it's her cabin, she excuses herself with a nod of her head.

She’ll have to do her business with the rearguard quickly, get the merchant that’s blocking their exit out of the way and then retreat to the vanguard. She should move immediately to the exit, so as not to waste time. Hopefully, she’ll be able to manage this quickly with the added aid of her magic. As she buttoned up her shirt, she wondered if she could somehow reinforce her blades with it. It would be a lot easier if they didn’t break or dull so often. Having learned techniques from the future wouldn’t hurt either.

She laced up the belts and lifted the 3DMG to around her waist. Today is the last free day, they can all choose which area to work in. It’d be best for her to work with the maneuver gear today- make sure she has everything down before the real battle. If anything, it looked like her tutor would be practically useless now that she’s learned the basics.

Magic opened up all sorts of possibilities, and her shield added a new layer of protection. _Maybe I could learn to manifest swords,_ she thought as she slipped her arms through the holes of her jacket. Leaving the cottage, with the nurse no where to be seen, she finds Armin and Eren waiting for her, leaning against the wall. Armin has his fingers laced in front of him, and Eren has his arms tucked behind his back.

This is also unusual- she was always the one waiting, never them. Perhaps they think she could be attacked again? But Mikasa’s not vulnerable, not in the slightest, so their worry is unfounded. She killed a witch and two familiars all by herself, she doesn’t need their worries.  Wordlessly, they walk back to the camp, more like three strangers than three best friends. She would have to cajole information out of Annie, figure out what was going on, as she was the only one who could relate to her situation.

No matter what she does, this world continues to prove itself cruel. She can find no beauty in this situation, people that she’s loved for so long, one looking at her like she’s criminal and one looking at her with confusing mild affection. When her fingers roll into her scarf, it unravels the knot she ties it into. Moving to fix it, she finds it a bright red, in contrast to the black scarf Eren had wrapped around her so long ago.

_What a cold, cruel world this is._

 


	9. Everything is Hard before it is Easy

It takes a while for Mikasa to adjust to the normal, campy feeling of the training squad again. Everyone carries such light expression- they are all almost unfamiliar to her. She has to do a double-take at Jean, without the slight wrinkle in his brown, pretending to fight Marco, who is still alive. These thoughts are dark and unwarranted, yet she can’t shake them off. Sasha and Connie practice some sort of over exaggerated martial arts, their hands over their heads as they let out loud ‘oooo’ sounds.

Her fingers trail up to her scarf, searching for familiarity, yet clench into a fist when she recalls the issue at hand. Her Eren didn’t give her this scarf- it was this strange Eren that kept asking her how she was feeling, if she had been badly hurt. Though not entirely unwelcome, his friendliness rings a hollow ache in her chest and pulses the images of his death, gruesome details blazoned on her retinas.

He folds his arms behind his head, at ease, somehow. Before, he was always solely focused on getting stronger to exterminate the titans, yet here he is, appearing to be slacking off. He casts his green eyes over to her (it was his eyes that really got to her- lacking the envelope-yellow shade that she missed), half-mumbling out a question, laced with a yawn. “So, what section are you doing today, Mikasa?”

Eren obviously expects for there to be many more days like this, with the time to weave in and out of Shadis’ blind spots and keep off of work. “I’ll work on the three-dimensional maneuver gear. I might join the assembly team if I finish early.” It would do her good to brush up on some of the techniques she’d gleaned from Captain Levi- reviewing how to reattach gas canisters wouldn’t hurt either.

His lethargy is contagious, and she lets out a wide yawn. If she were being technical, the last night of sleep she had was about two years in the future. “Did you not get enough sleep last night, Mikasa?” Armin speaks up, tilting his head up to make eye contact with her. His voice holds another accusation- what was she doing last night to make herself so tired?

“I just didn’t get a goodnight’s sleep.” In reality, she was exhausted from the sudden decline in adrenaline that she was now facing- she’d been depending on it from the moment she got up. Eren lazing about certainly didn’t help her want to keep her eyes open. Her lie doesn’t sound convincing, however, so she adds to it. “I was having horrible nightmares.”

This gets Eren’s attention and, apparently, Armin’s sympathy. Armin’s eyebrows knit together, his bottom lip jutting out as he frowns. He casts his gaze downwards. “Oh.” The breath seems to hold deep meaning, one she can’t decipher. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Mikasa doesn’t recall ever having had such great nightmares that they would make Armin feel guilty about asking about. She pats his back, rubbing in circular motions. “Don’t be sorry, it’s fine.” He shies away from her in the slightest, just barely half a centimeter, and her hand is left hovering. It is obviously not fine.

On the other side of her, Eren has gotten closer, to the point where she can almost feel his breath as he talks, a ghost of his words. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having them again?” His fingers close around her upper arm. Now she’s the one to shy away- Eren was never so physical like this. Armin was never so distant that she couldn’t even touch him. “Y’know, you can always wake me up if they get too serious.”

No, no she didn’t know. This was completely new information. Eren was the largest grouch when he was woken up from a nap- not to mention rising him in the middle of the night. She can recall a sizable bruise on her ribcage for having woken him up for Christmas morning, about two hours before sunrise. He was excited for Christmas, however- why would he be so inclined to be woken up to comfort her out of a nightmare? He’s still trying to make eye contact, as if to lay proof to his claim, but her eyes are averted as she continues down this train of thought.

“Oh, yes, of course.” The answer is empty, she’s not truly behind it, just answering to answer his statement. She can feel both sets of their eyes trained on her, making a chill run up her spine. “What group will you two go to today?”

“Hand-to-hand combat.” Eren answers, easily. It’s one of the things he’s best at, she remembers. He’ll have no use for it, she’ll make sure, as he won’t shift in Trost. The actual details are a bit fuzzy in her mind, yet the outline is clear: move the blocking merchant, kill some titans, keep Eren from being killed, keep Armin from being traumatized.

“Three-dimensional maneuver gear.” Armin’s eyes look her over, now more alarmed than suspicious. Had he chose that division simply to keep an eye on her? She balances her weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. Perhaps they weren’t as acquainted as they had been- maybe met at a later date, made superficial bonds?

The scene in the nurse’s cabinet suggested otherwise, but Mikasa refuses to acknowledge any scenario that would leave Armin cold to her, with their shared past.

Eren laughs a little as he waves goodbye, probably heading off to tussle with Reiner. No, he actually will fight with Reiner. She forgets, now, that she’s not of this time- this isn’t current, she knows exactly what will happen. She wants to nuzzle into her scarf, but, instead, touches her fingertips to her forehead, the only comforting gesture she has left.

Armin holds out his hand to her, to pull her along in the direction of the titan dummies, set up with cushions to imitate their necks. They must be set deeper in the woods this time- of course they are. Forgetfulness was beginning to be her plague. She knows the exact locations of the set-ups, was able to take out most of them by herself in these exercises. Anchoring herself to a tree on the outside of the small forest, she’s about to launch herself upward when Armin tugs on her fingers.

“If something was wrong, you’d tell me, right?” From accusatory to alarmed to downtrodden, his eyes have told her an emotional story in the past thirty minutes. He’s worried, that much is apparent, but she isn’t sure as to what he’s worried about. She hasn’t given him any case, save for the copious wounds she’d received (and, he knew, that she had healed).

Mikasa places her hand on his back, unfolding it from his own, attempting to muster as gentle of a smile as possible. “Of course.” She tilts her head to the side, hearing more lines anchor around them. She spots Annie perched amongst branches, high over them, with other trainees (of whom she didn’t recognize- save for the one she knew from the crawlspace, who’d begged for someone to kill him, having dulled his blades).

Armin doesn’t back away from her this time. If anything, she can almost feel him press further. “I wanted to talk to you about something, anyway.” She’s adopted the tone from when they were younger, when he would get paper cuts or scratched elbows and cried for hours, needing someone to talk him down. Annie’s eyes pierce her from above, like pins dropped on her scalp. She meets her gaze evenly- her discussion with Armin has nothing to do with her. She was already going to omit Annie’s participation- the unspoken warning was utterly unnecessary.

“Ah, well,” Calmed from the assurance that he would soon understand the situation, he focuses on their work. “We should get to work before Shadis gets us.” Here is the Armin she was so familiar with- diligent and understanding, with a cunning plan behind every word he said.

“Of course.” With a wide grin twisting onto her face, like an unstoppable fit of giggles escaping, she childishly calls out, “Me first!” It’s been a while since anything like this had happened, since she’d felt so free (in metaphorical terms- she was very much so trapped in more than one physical way).

“No fair!” Armin’s winded voice calls out as he attempts to propel himself quickly enough to match her skill. Unfortunately for him, she has an extra two years under her belt, showing when she suddenly switches to hopping between thick branches to conserve gas.

When a titan mannequin comes into view, she goes back to her gear, ascending upward into the trees. He follows her, confused until she retracts her lines from the tree and re-anchors them in the false neck. She swings in silver arcs, letting gravity work for her, until she comes down on its neck.

Remaining there for another pause, she surveys the depth of the gash. It’s easily her best, more than twenty centimeters. She’s improved. Armin watches her from a cluster of branches, smiling as she proudly examines her handiwork. It’s an awfully morbid thing to be proud of, but it wasn’t often that she smiled like that. When she finally tears her eyes off of the false titan, she glides back into the forest, an acrobat in her circus. He follows, rather intent on trying to catch a titan before she does, to see how far his planning would take him.

In the end, she had slayed six and he had barely nicked one.

 


	10. This is Part of Our Mortal Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will include Mikasa's first timelines and then conclude with her last (the last timeline will have very little similarities to Puella Magi Madoka Magica's timeline, so don't worry about knowing what's ahead).  
> If you want access to the timelines in between, the tumblr where I'll answer questions/post drabbles is:  
> attackonpuellamagi.tumblr.com

At dinner, Armin leans his head on her, winded to the point of exhaustion. Exercising in such a manner, killing titans that couldn’t fight back, had supplied Mikasa with an adrenaline rush to match no other. She’s lightheaded, one part from exertion, the other from satisfaction. She’s prepared, even over-prepared, if her training was anything to judge by. Armin never was extremely physically fit, so it was no surprise that he’d be this tired after keeping up with her- _at least he never gave up._ That’s her Armin, a trooper until the end.

He hasn’t touched his food yet, and she can only assume it’s because he can’t afford to waste any breath on eating. She hadn’t meant to make him exert himself so much... Her fingers find a place in between his shoulder blades, patting at him in an attempt to calm him. His shallow breathing is moving the loose strands of her hair, the pieces not tucked under her scarf, and something about it feels strangely intimate. It’s unfamiliar.

She doesn’t like it.

While unsure that it would even work, her fingers curl and the softest red sparks flick off of her fingers onto him. He freezes immediately, his eyes darting to hers, his head suddenly digging into her shoulder. She moves her fingers in the same pattern as before, focused on healing him. That amount of exhaustion in such a small period wasn’t typical for him- especially after they’d just finished their training. If Armin’s thin-lipped smile is any indication, his suspicions remain, and he was definitely aware of his sudden return to health.

Mikasa sighs, but continues to pat his back. She’s been cheated out of their trusting relationship already, so she might as well wreck it completely, if it’s for the sake of his comfort. She only pulls her hand away to pull apart pieces of bread, popping them into her mouth. After delicately cutting up the steak (God, steak. When had she last had steak?) and clearing through her mashed potatoes, she plucks Armin’s spoon from his hand.

He’d just been pushing his food around, playing with it more than eating it. She collects the majority of the pudding from her tray onto the spoon, dropping it onto his. His head lifts off of her shoulder, now attentive, a little smile on his face. “No, Mikasa, that’s your food.” Guilt hangs in his eyes, his smile empty- oh, no, she knows exactly what he’s thinking. His inferiority complex was always an ever-present difficulty in their friendship, not to mention his lack of self-worth.

She places more of her pudding onto his tray, contemplating what to say. “Armin, I’m not that fond of pudding.” Another spoonful. “You need more energy to burn.”

His smile curves downward. “You need energy too, Mikasa. You don’t have to baby me.”

The spoon freezes in her hand. She can only stare at it. _Am I being overbearing?_ She just wanted to take care of him- take care of Eren- take care of everyone. Was something wrong with that? ...She can’t meet his eyes. “Oh.” It takes her a minute to remember how to move her fingers- she had stared at them for so long that they no longer seemed to be a part of her. She taps the handle of the spoon against his hand, for him to grasp it. “...Sorry.”

He realizes he’s upset her, yet can’t exactly figure out how. Nothing he’d said had been particularly offensive, at least in the context of the situation. Of course he would be hesitant to take her food- they’d starved on the streets of Wall Rose and, now, when they were now assured three meals a day, it seemed cruel to take her food. Armin nudges her with his shoulder, a small smile on his face. He takes a spoonful of her pudding and eats it, wondering if that’s what had upset her. “Thank you, Mikasa.”

Mildly surprised, she ducks her nose into her scarf. Old habits die hard, it seems. It was comforting, seeing him have food to eat. Meals had been rationed to a point in the old Survey Corps headquarters, usually a meal a day, two at most. He needed to keep his strength up. “It’s no big deal.” They remain in comfortable silence as he slowly finishes the pudding.

When Not-Eren comes into the cafeteria, he definitely makes a scene. It’s enough to make her start, frozen in place as he slams the door open with a loud laugh, half-limping, half-hanging off of Reiner. Mikasa can only assume that he’d told a joke, but the way he laughs makes her doubt it. Where had he adapted this attitude, that laughing was a free action, unprompted? That the world was so light that he could be so carefree?

He ends the conversation with a dismissive wave in Reiner’s direction, who also laughs in turn. It makes her grit her teeth, seeing them so close. The laughing appears to have been a waste of breath, as he begins to pant. Everything is so different here, so uncomfortable. Internally, she makes a list of her priorities. At the top of the list: Tell Armin about the puella magi, then ask Annie about what’s different this time. She’ll tell him today- tomorrow would be too late. Eren crashes onto the bench, immediately laying down, breathing heavily and huffing. Hand-to-hand must’ve tired him out.

She leans over the table, looking down and over him. “Do you need me to go get you a tray?” He wheezes in what she deciphers as an affirmative manner. She sighs, getting up to retrieve one of the pre-made trays. The cafeteria management argues briefly with her, believing she’s coming back for seconds, until she points at the boy flopping about like a dying fish on one of their benches.

In the end, she returns with the tray. It takes a bit of maneuvering to get the tray on the tabletop, trying not to fall on top of him- seizing, oxygen-deprived. She manages, patting his head with a ghost of a smile. She takes her place beside Armin again, watching Eren immediately sit up at the promise of food. She can’t restrain her laugh at the voracious manner in which he blows through his food. Armin’s eyes cut to her and, when Eren pauses in his eating, she realizes that this must be how he always eats.

Contrasting the careful way he’d always picked through his food- as far as she’d known him.

She quiets herself immediately, guiltily moving her eyes away from them. She didn’t know them, not really. Eren speaks through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Sho, how wash yer trainin’?” It’s the closest his accent has been to what it was before, and it’s because his face is crammed full of food. Some emotion, akin to homesickness, rings hollowly in her chest.

“It was great.” Armin leans forward on his elbow, eyes wide with interest. “Mikasa showed me a bunch of new techniques-”

 _Oh_. She had forgotten again, that they didn’t know any of this yet. She’d just practiced how she’d always practiced in the future, using the maneuvers she’d learned from Captain Levi. Nothing too complex, but useful for conserving her gas. Forcing a smile onto her face, her mind going a million miles an hour, she tries to interject into the conversation. “They’re just something I thought up last night...”

Armin totally isn’t buying it, if the slight of his eyebrows is any tell. Eren, instead, seems completely enthralled, leaning forward with his hands on the table. “No way, Mikasa!” His eyebrows, strangely thick, rise, his mouth open, some of his food falling out of his mouth. “God damn, how do you do all of this?”

His attention makes her flush, ducking her head away. “Ah, well, um...” She has no answer for him. She looks to Armin for him to help her.

He looks like he’s about to laugh at her helpless expression, but talks over her, beginning to explain the mechanics of the first technique she’d used. (She hadn’t even noticed she’d used it, going from her 3DMG to jumping from branch to branch. It had just been second-nature to conserve gas.) After a while, the light dies from Eren’s eyes, but Armin continues to talk, with wide, overzealous hand gestures. Behind his eyes, she can see the laugh that he can let out, but he continues to talk, going a bit overboard on his description of her utilizing gravity to cut deeper. Even she begins to lose interest, and he needs to take a breath, so the conversation tapers off slowly.

With a yawn, Eren leans over, stacking all of their trays. “I’ll... I’ll go put these up.” The cafeteria is almost cleared, only a few trainees hanging around to finish off their conversations. He’s most definitely doing so to escape the lecture he’s receiving. When he leaves, Armin stops, exhaling loudly.

“Thank you, Armin.” The corner of his mouth twitches down, looking her in the eye. He looks distrustful once more.

“You’re welcome-” Another pause. “...You... You are Mikasa, right?”

“Of course!” The idea is insane, and she feels the need to defend herself. She reaches across the table to grasp his wrist. “I’ll... I want to tell you about what’s happening- tonight. Something...” She struggles for a good adjective, deciding against ‘catastrophic’ or ‘tragic’. “Something big is happening tomorrow, we won’t be able to talk.”

His fingers play with the edge of the table, looking away. There’s more than a little hesitance in his voice. “...Okay.” Another long, unhappy exhale. “...Where?”

“Outside of the boys’ cabin would probably be best.” Her eyebrows wrinkle and she begins to elaborate, but Eren’s back, yawning. It would probably be best if she withheld the information from him for a while, judging by how rash and unpredictable he seemed so far.

She presses her thumbs to her temples. This was going to be a long night.

 


	11. It is Truth-Telling

She is nervous, in a strange way.

Mikasa’s always been rather upfront about her feelings, her humor taking its toll from such, and the idea of secrets was enough to make her uneasy. Her lying was horrible, exemplified when she was interrogated over Eren’s rogue moment causing her harm. She rubs the unmarked skin of her cheek, faintly recalling the dip where the scar had been. It had rapidly became clear to her that Armin and she hadn’t set a time for the meeting, and she was left in retrospection, leaning against corner of the boys cabin.

Some boys had lingered too closely to her and, with every time, she would have to jerk her body away, back into the shadows and away from their lanterns. It’s one of the few moments she’d truly been all alone in the span of this day- she was still adjusting. It’s no problem, though. She plays with her thumbs, biting down onto her lip. _I’ll get my answers somehow._

Her plan for Trost remains a little hazy, but, incredibly, she’s able to remember the majority of her exact words- repeating them at key moments would be the easier part of her day. She lazily drew circle-faces in the dirt, making Armin’s bowlcut hair rather extreme and the merchant’s head almost plate sized. She connected Armin’s head to Eren’s head, putting arrows back and forth between them, then an ‘X’ over the merchants face.

She hears footsteps approach, light, with a hand dragging against wall, just barely enough to make the slightest noise. Before she’s able to turn the corner, Armin’s hand grasps her shoulder, holding her in place. She freezes momentarily, but he pivots himself around her, hiding himself in the shadow of the cabin. Seeing who it was, she also follows his example, already thinking ahead about what to say. When he speaks first, she’s mildly surprised. “Would this have anything to do with how... out of place you are now?”

It’s rather direct question. She had expected a roundabout question, something indirect that would lead to the same answer. She makes another mental note: this Armin isn’t as secretive. That might be an issue when Annie is outed as the Female Titan. Nervously, Mikasa picks underneath her fingernails, steeling herself to look him in the eyes. “Yes, of course.” A long breath of air punctuates the silence. “Technically, yesterday for you...” How could she explain this?

She shoves her boot against the drawing of Armin and Eren, scuffing and obscuring it. What had happened to her easily went against any form of logic, not to mention the advanced logic that Armin possessed. She stamps out the doodle of the merchant, the frown tugging at her lips. Armin’s eyes are narrowed, analyzing her, she can feel it, even when she scrunches her eyes closed. “Yesterday, you were perfectly normal-” He stops himself, seeing her eyes open, with a hurt look. He quickly closes his mouth.

“Yesterday for you was technically two years in the future for me.” A horrendous way to put it, but it was suitable. He leans forward, as if her whispers weren’t perfectly audible. In the corner of her eye, she can see Kyubey slowly advance, pausing to lick his front paw. When they catch eyes, he backs away, no longer visible to her. 

“That’s impossible, Mikasa.” His hand accidentally brushes against hers, and he jerks it away. Her heart aches horribly, and she holds her hand over it, sighing heavily. He doesn't appear to notice. "Traveling through time... Are you sure you didn’t have a bad nightmare?”

“Someone who cannot abandon everything cannot achieve anything.” If she hadn't given up their relationship from the future as she had, then they would all be dead. Giving it all up was worthy if it meant they lived.

The words had been aimed toward herself, a mantra of sorts, but he immediately looks up, eyes wide. She’d quoted a thought he’d constantly had, word for word. On her end, it had been unintentional, just repeating words he’d told her and Eren and that had struck a chord with her. “Two years in the future, a giant creature appeared in the sky and wiped out the titans and... then us.” She bites her tongue, thinking about their deaths. That’s one thing she definitely didn’t want to linger on.

“It definitely sounds like a bad dream, Mikasa.” His hand, having shied away previously, moves to grasp hers, knitting with her fingers. Briefly, her heart stops. He smiles, wide and encouraging, and it unnerves her. “You know, if you have dreams like these, you can always come and talk to Eren or me.” Mikasa still doesn’t ever recall having these nightmares, ever.

Armin was a man of reason, of course, and he needed physical proof. She twists the ring around her middle finger, curling her fingers. When she unfurls them, her soul gem rests in her palm, a bright glow emitting from it. He immediately recoils, his right hand beginning to pull her away from it, as if it were dangerous and she needed saving. She quickly held down onto it, making sure it didn’t fall from her hands.

Looking into his eyes, she makes certain her voice was steady and even. “Two years in the future, humanity was almost wiped out. I was one of fifteen survivors left and some- some- creature told me I had the chance to fight if I made a wish.” She swallows. His eyes are wide and fearful, his pupils small pinpricks on the foreground of blue. “I wished to go back before it happened so that... So that I could save you all. The jewel in my hand is that wish.”

“What... What does this all mean?” The idea of her self-sacrifice is enough to put him on edge. He takes his hand away from her to wipe at his eyes, keeping tears at bay.

She moves closer, her hand on his shoulder, more to calm herself than to calm him. “It means I can make everything right.” Her plan plays out behind her eyes. “Everyone lives, no one gets hurt. It’ll... It’ll all be fine.”

“Mikasa, all you’re giving me is more questions- You’re not giving me any answers!” His voice rises and he cuts it back to a whisper. She can hear someone move in the cabin and they both freeze. “What do you have to make right? We’ll... We’ll get into the Survey Corps, with Eren, and we’ll fight titans and then we-we’ll make it to the outside world and see the ocean and...” Tears fall before he’s able to wipe them away from his damp eyes.

She clutches her soul gem again, making it dissolve back into a ring. With her free hands, she brushed the tears away from under his eyes. She tries to echo his encouraging smile from earlier, but her voice carries a sense of urgency. “Tomorrow, the Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan are going to invade the Trost district.” His eye contact feels strained, as if he’s fighting not to look away from her. “I need you to keep Eren from rushing into danger. Just... Keep the both of you safe. I’ll be there and I’ll kill all of the titans around you, so don’t worry.”

Mikasa stands, holding out her hand to pick him up. He takes it, the shell shocked, scared look never leaving his eyes. “If this... If that happened then how could we survive? Why would they- They’d just be... using us for titan bait.” His eyes fade from fear to realization to horror. She pulls him into a quick embrace, then holds him at arms-length.

“That won’t happen.” Her voice is certain, and she hopes her eyes convey a similar message. “Just wait for me, alright? Everything will be fine.” She begins to pull away from him, nodding to him, but he grabs the edge of her shirt.

“Mikasa, wait!” He’s no longer afraid, but holds a worried look. “Don’t hurt yourself just to look out for us-”

She can’t help the small smile that curves along her lips. “I should be the last person for you to worry about, Armin.” She pries his fingers out from the corner of her shirt, holding his hands in hers for only a moment, before letting go. Mikasa turns herself away from him, the smallest frown forming. “...Sleep well, Armin. You’ll need your strength for tomorrow.”

As if he would be able to get a good night's rest with such an event ahead. She wonders if she should have told him- it was certainly not something that would lead to good dreams. She’s moves toward the wall separating the different gender’s cabins, moving along its edge to remain in its shadow. Faintly, she hears him reply, “Good night, Mikasa.” She hadn’t imagined the fear in his voice.

It’s the first time she’s felt so uncertain in this past. Instead of winding her fingers in her scarf, she twists the ring around and around, the only thing of her future she had left.

 


	12. A Man Sees in the World What He Carries in his Heart

Stationed on the tops of Wall Rose and inspecting the cannons, Mikasa can recall why everyone had been so at ease. It was a tedious, meticulous job, and she found it difficult to keep her eyes open after a full night of strategizing. Her wrists began to ache from constantly cramming the sponge down into it to clean it. The garrison hadn’t done a particularly good job at cleaning it after they’d used it. Straightening her back and observing her comrades, none of whom she knew by name, she cast her gaze about for Eren’s group.

She’d rushed through all of her work so that she could make it over to his spot in time. Picking up a steady jog, she made a noncommittal wave over her shoulder for the other two girls who had been with her. They’d been unable to pry her away from the cannon, her speedy and efficient work mildly intimidating to them, and had let her finish it by herself while nervously looking onward. There was no means of measuring time accurately on top of the walls- no sundial or clock in sight- but something instinctual had curled in her gut, pushing her faster.

The sun has barely peeked it’s eye over the sky, meaning she has a decent amount of time to cross the kilometers separating them. She had contemplated the appropriate distance between her and Eren’s post, realizing the burst of steam the Colossal Titan would provide would knock precious seconds off of her mission. She pauses every now and then, analyzing herself to make sure she’s not too winded.

Her heartbeat makes dull background noise, and she counts out sixty seconds and seventy-one heartbeats in her last pause. Finally, she arrives at her designated point, looking about to locate the Titan. Bertholdt is no where in sight, so she can only assume that he has started his descent down the wall. Reiner is no where to be found either.

Stopping with his right arm stuffed down the cannon (warning bells went off in her head- he’s being utterly reckless! What if someone ignited it?), Eren seems to sense her, turning his head in her direction. She’s a sizable pace away from him, where they would have to shout if they wanted to talk, but he takes the time to wave at her with his free arm. Sasha moves protectively toward a box and Mikasa has the faint recollection of a ham being stored in it.

It makes her relatively unnerved, remembering things that she knows she’s never seen.

She rotates her maneuver gear so that the anchors aim toward the ground, and she pulls the triggers, holding her in place for when the steam came. Her internal clock was ticking down, feeling the air charge with tension as she gazes over the wall. Below, ten- and twelve-meter titans mindlessly smack their fists against the wall, useless for now. She begins her own countdown. Silently, she mouths the words, “Twenty... Nineteen...” Eren unjams his arm, beginning to walk toward her with an arm covered in gunpowder. “Fifteen... Fourteen...”

“Hey, Mikasa! Why are you away from your post?” He cups his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice, leaving a black ‘c’ shape from his cheek to his nose from his sooty hand.

“Five... Four... Three...” She squares his feet, knees crouched slightly, head tucked. “Two...” A thunderous rumble emits in the air, a shock of lightning in an otherwise clear sky illuminating the immediate area. Her head snaps upward, resulting in a momentary headache. _That’s never happened before..._

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, as steam emits from under the wall. She’d underestimated it, and it’s strong enough to force her backwards, the anchoring wires struggling to remain taut. It sends Eren and his group immediately over the wall, she can see they all managed to hang on. With a breath of relief, she feels the roasting bursts of air lessen around her and, removing the arrows from the wall, leaps forward. She sinks the arrows into the wide expanse of a shoulder, blasting the gas to force her speed.

When she lands onto it, her feet sink slightly, more steam escaping to scald the exposed patches of skin of her ankles, neck, and head. She has no gas to waste- she can feel it raise it’s foot to the wall already- and she takes off in a run, drawing her swords and scanning the area more. It’s a long, long run, but it’s the only shot humanity would have for a long time.

Jumping off from under its ear, she sinks the anchors on both sides of the area she needs to cut. It begins to move its arm, to swat her away, but she’s quicker, more skilled. _I did not go all this way just to be crushed like a fly!_ Her feet hit the white muscle in the same moment her swords curve downward. Letting the anchors go only briefly, she sinks them in deeper from her closer range, assuming- no, she’s certain- that they landed in both of Bertholdt’s arms. It would make it more difficult for her to be blown away.

The cut she made exposes his neck, his actual neck, not the titan’s, and she hesitates. This is her fellow soldier, someone she was intended to fight alongside, not against. She can recall him smiling with Annie and Reiner, on the other side of the cafeteria, too far away for anyone to confront or talk to them. Perhaps he was an innocent, too, as Annie was. Her grip on her blades falters as she takes in the titan body beneath her.

The spliced muscle isn’t healing below her.

She grits her teeth and, above and to the left of her vision, she can see Eren wasting every ounce of gas to propel himself to the base of the Colossal Titan’s neck. Bertholdt’s head turns, the muscle around it accommodating to make way for the position of his head. His green eyes are wide and pleading, full of fear and confusion, and she can see Eren in them. She can’t look him in the eye.

She heaves her swords straight through his neck, a death quick enough for him not to scream. Her teeth chatter, looking away, her body moving automatically as the muscle slowly disappears from the skeleton, using it to move herself to the top of the wall. Eren waits for her there, a wide, shocked grin on his face. She perches herself at the edge of it, staring down at the ground fifty meters below. The past five minutes rewind themselves in her mind’s eye, leaving no detail unshown.

“This world is cruel,” Mikasa whispers to herself, fingernails sinking into the leather of her jacket. “It’s just too cruel...”

Another nameless soldier runs at them, hands flailing about as she tries to speak. Eren puts his hands on her shoulders, waiting for her to take a breath. When she speaks, it’s with exasperation and confusion. “Th-the Armored Titan has bre-breached Wall Rose! All soldiers are on the offensive!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the last chapter, but this is probably going to be on hiatus through finals- expect an update around June 11th. Comments on how you like it so far?


	13. We Should Not Allow Our Personal Values to Erode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typed out this chapter while I had the time- still on a semi-hiatus, sorry!  
> Mind dropping a comment as to what you think about this story?

Gritting her teeth against the bile that threatened to rise from her throat, Mikasa takes survey of the situation. She’d been fairly quick in her execution of Bertholdt- of the Colossal Titan, she amended. It gave humanity the advantage of fully-functional cannons and, when she bent at the waist to look down, what looked to be a smaller hole for titans to emerge from. She’d underestimated Reiner- the Armored Titan, thinking that he hadn’t been strong enough to plow through the wall. It meant that any titan above twelve meters wouldn’t be able to make it through, but that still didn’t rule out too many of them.

She moves automatically, taking a jog behind Eren as the response operation began, forcing them all back to their headquarters. Garrison members took off around her, and she resisted the need to pull them back, to warn them about the danger they were putting themselves in. Why did they always have to be the ones to fight back? They weren’t trained to be skilled in combat, so why did the headquarters always send the Garrison out in such dangerous situations?

Eren was attempting to keep his pace with her, his head turned and facing her, even though he really should be watching where he was going. _This Eren has no common sense. Or sense of self-preservation._  Mikasa huffs a little to herself, slowing down. He seemed to be easily winded, his chest rising and falling too quickly. His eyes held something she couldn’t identify, having never seen him with such an expression.

When they came to the giant skeletal right hand that used to belong to the Colossal Titan, she corrects their course, turning to the left and beginning to descend the wall. She still has a plan to follow through, even though she’d wasted a good portion of her time already. She had no time for guilt, but couldn’t stop its acidic burn, curling through her stomach.

Overhead, the town’s bell chimed, the symbol for evacuation. Idly, and rather morbidly, she wonders if the witch had already taken down the same tower upon her arrival, as they hadn’t rung it then. People crammed together and, from her position on the wall, looked like red and black ants struggling out of a hill.

“If they break through here,” One of the Garrison’s voices projects upward, just enough for her to hear. “Then we’ll have another tragedy just like five years ago on our hands!” _How insensitive._ Mikasa flexes her hands, her jaw locked as she considered her options. _It already is a tragedy. You’re creating panic, talking like that!_ It’s obvious the net they’d set up wouldn’t hold, that their cannons had no sure line of sight, that they wouldn’t be able to fix the wall in a flat five minutes.

The two of them had just barely made it into the main building when a man began to shout about their graduation, deeming them soldiers now that it was convenient for them. His words of praise fell on deaf ears as everyone struggled about them, trying to assemble their 3DMG. When she sees Hanna and Franz in the corner, her stomach gives an unpleasant lurch as yet another wave of guilt washes over her.

 _I can’t afford to worry over everyone. The amount of people I can care about is at a fixed amount._ Eren’s already crossed the floor to Armin, whose eyes are wide with panic, hands shaking. “Are you okay, Armin?” She rushed over, enough to catch his words.

“I-I’m fine, I’ll calm down soon,” Yet, under his breath, rushed and breathless words caught her attention. “It’s happening, just like Mikasa said. We can’t do anything about this, we can’t plug the hole quickly enough, this city is as good as gone!” She lowers herself onto her knees, motions slow and deliberate. Wrapping her arms around his, she shadows his hands with her own, guiding the loop of the gas canister into its receiving end. He freezes against her, turning his head to look at her, eyes wide and fearful. It’s only then that he sees a strange form of wisdom in her eyes, a loving smile spread on her face.

“Don’t worry, Armin,” She laced the fingers of her left hand with his, using the other to put the gas canister in its container. “I’ll keep the both of you safe, so you have nothing to worry about.” He lets out a quick, almost unnoticeable puff of breath, the air pushing some of the strands of her hair away from her face. He was consistent with how he was in the future, for the most part, and he was the only comfort she could hold.

“Thank you, Mikasa.” His smile is wobbly, hanging too much on the right side. She pats his head, almost encouraging. “But, re-remember what I said last night, okay? Don’t forget about yourself.” He was shy? She could almost laugh. Armin had always had a quiet sort of confidence, standing up for what he believed in despite the consequences. Now was no time for him to hesitate with her.

“You’re welcome, Armin.” Her smile grew wider on the edges, and she saw Eren lean forward, a bit of a smirk beginning to form.

“I would ask you two to get a room, but we have bigger issues to deal with right now.” Armin froze again, sputtering out some unintelligible answer, while Mikasa shook her head at Eren. This Eren was carefree, bordering on irresponsible and crude.

The Garrison’s director’s voice called out overhead once more. “As practiced, you will now split into your squads,” He took a long and ragged breath. “And perform resupply, message relay, and Titan-clearing duties under the command of the Garrison!” As he began to list off the positions, Mikasa re-evaluated her position in the vanguard.

It would be fine for her to abandon it, of course, once she cleared the titans out and allowed the citizens to evacuate. She was then free to take the middle guard, as the military's plan was, eventually, damned to fail. She hears Eren’s gasp when he announces the advancement team’s demise. _I really should’ve warned them. Or have stayed and fought._ Turning her head about, she can only see a wave of horrified faces as the news became grimmer.

The advancement team is dead. The outer gate has been breached. The titans are inside. When he discussed the possibility of the Armored Titan’s reappearance to take out the inner gate, she scoffed, catching Armin’s attention. Holding his questioning gaze, she nodded her affirmation of the fact, and he shivered, clutching his tongue between his teeth. Everyone shared looks of mixed horror around him, but he appeared only contemplative and worried.

On her other side, Eren’s mouth had briefly dropped, the crease between his eyebrows deepening by the moment. While Mikasa had killed the Colossal Titan, it had done virtually nothing to better the situation- she hadn’t even been given credit for doing so. Clutching his fists at his sides, he can only observe her, unable to think of what he could say to her. Within him, he was relieved and thankful for her elimination of the main threat, perhaps even felt adoration toward her.

Yet, at the surface, he could only feel a horrid jealousy. Had he failed to avenge his mother by letting Mikasa take his prey? No, she had just the same reasons for taking out the Titan, but had been more resourceful and quicker. As he observed her silent conversation with Armin, he can only wonder when they got so close. He can remember Mikasa hanging off of him for as long as he wanted to remember and her recent change in behavior only confused him. He missed her audible worrying over him and could only wonder if her nightmares had gotten so bad as to push her away from him.

God, he hoped not.

There was no denying the knowing look in her eye or the slight of her eyes that let on to a deeper knowledge. She knows something, he’s certain, but why she hasn’t told him is beyond him. All he can do is listen to the uncertain mutterings of their fellow soldiers, watching her drift away from him.


	14. Daring Ideas Are Like Chessmen Moved Forward

                While everyone had been informed of Mikasa’s exceptional skills throughout their training, they seemed confused and lost when they were actually put into action. After a brief nod and a smile to her two closest friends, she had quickly parted from them, her legs carrying her out into the middle of the city, where the rest of the rearguard followed overhead. _For being specialists, they aren’t even taking the gas into consideration!_ She can’t help the agitation that creeps into her thoughts, only looking at the titans slowly surrounding her with what she could only describe as disgust. They’d only become objects, obstacles in the grand scheme of things- dominoes to topple as they spell out a greater design.

                In her wake, she’d left Eren and Jean arguing loudly, with Eren delivering some motivational speech that she’d already heard before. Key words echoed in her head as she progressed, however, providing an extra bounce in her step. With just a little motivation, a small push, she felt as if she could move the walls herself. _That’s right, Eren,_ A smile graces her features as the titans closed in. She latches onto the very corner of a wall, using it to propel herself onto one of their necks, finishing it off with clean cuts. As the flesh began to burn away, she utilized its skeleton to jump to the next one, blades twirling as she somersaulted into its weakness. _We’re the ones who survived. And you’ll survive today, too, without a mark to show for it._

                She repeats the move on the two remaining titans, who swatted at the air as if she were a gnat, with the same accuracy. The gusts they forced onto her pushed only slightly off-course, forcing her to use her 3DMG, an annoyed grunt escaping her lips. Mikasa was fast and efficient, something she’d always prided herself on, and her work showed as she leaped off of a seven-meter titan and onto the ground, bending her knees to cushion her fall. Having cut through so many in so little time, the blood had accumulated on her swords, dripping down onto her hands. Making fists as the blood singed her hands, she scanned the immediate area for any more.

                The entirety of the rearguard stood in silent awe, staring at the blood-soaked girl, who then proceeded immediately in the direction of the gate. Her newly-appointed squad leader called for her, his hand outstretched, “Hey, where do you think you’re g-“. His voice faded out the farther she ran from him. She can remember foolishly wasting the time reminiscing on her past, but now was no time for tears or heartache. Mentally, she began to take notes, crossing off the parts of her mission she’d just completed. By clearing off the area for the rearguard, it would allow them to work alongside the vanguard, reducing casualties. She’s satisfied with that outcome, of course, but still needed to hurry in order to prevent Eren from transforming- saving him all the horrors to follow.

                Her increased vitality allows her to move quicker and over longer distances, but she is left to wonder when or where it came about. _Is it part of the me from this strange past…_ An Aberrant crawls at a fast pace toward her, yet her execution of it is even quicker. Her following thought runs a chill through her as her feet touch the ground. _Or is it part of being a puella magi?_ Mikasa raises her hand to the gem at her clavicle, as if shielding it from the world. The thought of being altered so drastically by a simple wish isn’t something that brings ease onto her mind.

                The closer she gets, the louder the shouts and panic of the civilians gets to her ears. Her fists remain clenched at her sides, what she’d said before running through her mind. She was never the best actress, so it works to her advantage to be so angry towards the merchant coming into view. “-how bad this situation is?!” A man that had attempted to fight his way through was violently pushed back, stumbling against his neighbors. The crowd parts around her, and she leans down to assist him to his feet. It takes a moment for recognition to dawn in his eyes, analyzing her trainee’s emblem on her chest and arm. The Garrison member they’d shoved forward cowered in the face of confrontation as the merchant began to list the ways he could ruin the Garrison financially. “-Do _you_ have the money to provide for the soldiers in this town?!”

                Mikasa pulled him to the side, taking his place in the situation. She remained unacknowledged by the merchant, apparently blending in with the townsfolk. A mother hugged her child to her chest, whispering reassurances in her ear. And, with that sight on her mind, she was able to summon up the rage so familiar to her. The titan that was supposed to be bumbling toward them had already been taken down in her multiple execution earlier, leaving them all to worry for later times. So, of course, she hadn’t made her impression on the townspeople, making her word value less.

                _That doesn’t matter, though, not at all_. She casts her gaze about. _If they don’t pull the cargo out, then…_ She knew that she had the nerves and the hatred to kill them. She’d killed before, countless times, if the titans counted as their human counterparts. _One life in exchange for a whole wall’s worth of lives_. _That’s fair._

                Projecting her voice, she advanced on the merchant. “What are you all doing?” Unlike how she’d wanted him to react, he shouts back in glee.

                “What perfect timing!” Oh, she couldn’t stand this selfish man. “Get these guys to help me! I’ll make it worth your while!” Swallowing down the bile that rose in reaction to the vile man and his vile offer ( _exchanging money for lives_ rang in her mind, inexplicable horror grinding out any other emotion).

                “My comrades-“ She takes a heavy breath, the emotion almost choking her. Before, when she’d said these words, they’d been hypotheticals, her faith in her fellow soldiers strong enough to believe that they’d pull through. Now, she knew the numbers, knew the cruelty in their deaths. “-are dying as we speak. They’re fighting-“ Her teeth grit together, tears welling in her eyes. “-and dying because the citizens haven’t finished evacuating.”

                “Of course they are!” No amount of preparation could ever get her used to those words, and she even knew what followed. In a vain attempt, she tried to shut him out, to focus on what needed to be done. “It’s your duty to give your hearts to defend the lives and property of the people! Don’t go getting a big head now that you freeloaders have something to do after a century of uselessness!” _Uselessness. He calls a century of never ending, repetitive deaths in the name of knowledge… Useless._

Her eyes narrowed, feet carrying her two steps at a time, her eyes never leaving his. He had horribly ugly eyes, like rust on iron, like greed made into reality. Without a word of explanation, she draws her blades. “If you feel people dying for other people is a matter of course,” Her eyes narrowed further, her grip twitching in a violent and threatening manner. He gulped in fear and she drank it in. “Then I’m sure you’ll understand that a single, precious life can sometimes save the lives of many as well.” As his bodyguards advanced, she paid them no attention, moving her swords to strike the both of them at the bases of their necks. She sees the merchant’s lips move, but doesn’t listen to another word. The men fall at her feet, unable to move, whether due to shock or to injury, she doesn’t care to differentiate. She knows what he said and, in her turn, answers, “How can a dead body talk?”

                He flinches away from her sword and, fleetingly, she knows that she’ll carry this out. He is only a breath away from death, taking much longer than he had before, the blade skimming his neck, when he calls out, “Wait!” A thin trickle of blood stains her sword and his collar. “Pull the cart out.”  The words are whispered, but the only grant to her mercy. She steps back, awaiting his men to make their move.

                They also seem hesitant, but they drag the cart out at a quicker pace when she cuts her eyes toward them. A raised eyebrow made one of them trip on his own feet in his hurry. As the people escape, she breathes a sigh of relief, gazing up at the late-morning sky. She’d proofread Armin’s report on the Attack on Trost and he had read hers, and the time that Armin had nearly been swallowed had been midday. Mikasa’s own breath seems to tremble in its exhale, stress and nerves catching up to her.

                The little girl she’d spotted from earlier crosses her path on her mother and her way out. “Thanks miss!” Her tone is grateful and happy, a childish lilt to it. Her mother follows her daughter’s example, continuing on. “You really saved the day. You have our gratitude!” Turning her whole body to face them, Mikasa pocketed her blades and place her fist over her heart, bowing her head to the pair.

                The rearguard’s squad leader began to advance on her once more, but she began to jog away, heading toward where she’d last seen the vanguard. “Good job, Acker- Wait, don’t leave your station!” Did it matter if she left her station? There were no titans in sight, therefore nothing for her to do. In time and distance, his voice faded from her, her eyes locking onto a large congregation of soldiers. Checking her gas tanks, she can only let out a pleased sigh.

                She’d make everything right this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm off of hiatus now! Sorry for the wait, finals were crazy and hellish.   
> As a reminder, if you have any questions about this story, please direct them to attackonpuellamagi.tumblr.com- I'm using it to flesh out timelines and the such, but I'll always keep this story posted on what's going on over there!  
> Comments are appreciated because it let's me know how you all feel about everything happening!


	15. They May Start a Winning Game

                Just  barely in her field of vision, she can make out the blonde, brown, and black bobbing heads of the squad that Eren and Armin had been designated to. Where they should’ve been latching themselves onto titans, or at least been on the lookout, they all appeared to be chatting idly, with confident looks being slung about. Of all of them, Mikasa can only recognize Mina and the Thomas boy she’d seen in their training squad. A call was sent out to bolster the vanguard, something the middle-guard was most definitely not adequately prepared to do. Travelling by foot, while not exhausting, put her at a great disadvantage in communicating to her soldiers overhead.

                “Eren!” Her voice echoes throughout the alleyway, yet his head is turned away from her, aimed at the others he had just spoken to. He looked to have just given another motivational speech, something that he was apparently good at doing. Her chest heaves as she draws in another breath to catch his attention. “Armin! Don’t go after the vanguard!” She’s just a handful of meters away from them, distance-wise, yet their position on the tall building distorted her voice.

                Armin paused in his advancement, whereas his comrades had raised their swords and raised a war cry to his ears. As they charged forward, Eren drew back to touch his shoulder lightly. “Hey, Armin, what’s wrong?”

                He could only turn his head about himself, searching for a familiar sound. He could’ve sworn that- “…Mikasa was calling me…” Ice immediately laced both of their veins, looking at each other with horrified stares. It was obvious to them that Mikasa was nowhere near them, still preoccupied in her own situation. Eren swallowed heavily, clapping a hand onto his shoulder.

                His unsteady laugh does nothing to calm either of them. “M-Maybe,” He swallows again, eyes darting away from Armin, as if he could physically dodge the idea of her ever dying. “Maybe you’re just hearing things, huh, Armin?”

                Armin doesn’t respond, instead taking off into a sprint to follow Mina Carolina, the last one who’d left. Mikasa ducks her nose into her scarf, muffling the few curses she’d let out. She hadn’t been able to hear their conversation, but she could tell something had riled him up, as his usually conscientious use of the gas had been foregone. Eren followed him few seconds later, an unusually morbid and somber look on his face. _What the hell could they have possibly been talking about that ruined their morale so badly?_

                Protecting this Eren felt more like babysitting, as far as she could tell. Did she truly have to monitor even his enthusiasm? Armin’s report had only mentioned Eren being swallowed whole by a titan- not informing her of the reason he hadn’t fought back. _I really hope that he didn’t die because of lack of motivation._ When she can no longer view any of his squad, she uses her wires as grappling hooks, pulling herself up a building.

                Two buildings back from everyone else, she struggled to push her body fast enough to catch up.  Leaping from building to building was no hurdle, as it was basic training for everyone in the military, but she had the disadvantage of not utilizing her 3DMG. Relying solely on her two legs made it difficult when they switched to a separate row of houses, forcing her to shadow them from the side she stood on. Though not completely drained, she can feel the beginnings of fatigue crawling up her legs. Pushing herself to take further strides, she finds the muscles aching dully, a constant but ignorable pain.

                Mikasa had definitely dispatched a decent number of titans before she’d latched onto the middle-guard, but the fact that the giant hole in the wall just allowed more to pour in made her progress matter very little. With large fists, they toppled whole roofs, fingers digging inside for their prize, knocking over candles, ovens, and dispensing firewood without concern. Fires began to consume houses, starting at the base and making kindle of the wooden houses and kilns of the stone ones. If she focuses hard enough, she can zero in on their faint screams, nagging at the back of her mind.

                She can’t hear Mina’s exactly words, what with the sizeable distance between them, but she can catch the tones of disbelief at the horror of the situation, how improbable it was to get it under control. An Aberrant has begun to move itself in their direction and Mikasa crouches, building up enough tension to aim herself to a closer wall. Catching the wall, she sinks her anchors in, then swings back and forth, quickly reaching the height she needed to be at.

                Knowing the exact timing of events was blossoming into her strong suit, as she began to count down from ten, watching the titan also build enough resistance to spring. _Ten, nine, eight, seven…_ Thomas darted a little too quickly, catching its attention as it focused on him. _Dammit, one!_ She pulled her anchors out of the wall, letting the momentum she’d built up sling her through the wind, the leather soles of her boots hitting what matched an Adam’s apple on a human. It jerked backward, as she’d expected, and she allowed herself the small burst of gas to pull her to the back of its neck.

                Time was of the essence, and if she gave it a single second more, it would endanger Eren and Armin’s squad further. Like tilling a field, she planted two thin lines into its neck, the softest frown on her face. _To think, humans would do this to their own kind…_ As she thought harder, the skin beneath her feet dissolving to nothing, she wasn’t sure if she was addressing the titans that turned into humans or the humans that hunted the titans. Squatting, she leapt off of the now-skeleton and onto the ledge of one of the house’s windows.

                The entire squad stared in shocked disbelief, not a word leaving their mouths. Eren’s chest rose and fell too quickly, and Mikasa passingly wondered if he was hyperventilating. “Mi-Mikasa! How did you do that?”

                Speaking over him, and not answering his question at all, she replied softly. “We still have a mission to complete. Keep moving forward, Eren.” The breeze blew through her hair, only slightly mussing it, with her lips parting at the pleasantly cool wind, eyelids shuttering for but a second. She tilted her head to the side, addressing the rest of them. “That goes for the rest of you, as well.”

                To Eren and Armin, however, she seemed nothing more than a glorious apparition, a guardian angel, with the end of her red scarf shifting in the wind, in turn with her hair. She descends the building, but their eyes remain locked on where she had stood. Perhaps it was because of their previous conversation and its insinuation that she was dead, but the whole situation had filled the both of them with a heavy sense of unease. Their glances at one another easily translated their feeling, yet neither of them vocalized it.

                Thomas held both his hands over his heart, genuinely hyperventilating, with Mina carefully rubbing circles along his back. He vomited once, and then proceeded to heave drily, heavy tears rolling down his face. “Holy shit,” His sobbing is punctuated only by very sharp consonants, the rest almost not understandable. “Holy shit, I was about to die, I really was about to die.”

                The squad exchanged frightened looks, staring down at him, confronted with the finality of their choice to join the military.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Happy birthday to me, woo!)  
> * When Armin and Eren worry about hearing Mikasa's voice, they're going along with the "folktale" (?) that you'll hear someone's voice when they've passed, when you're about to die/are to face grave danger. I didn't know if this translated well when I wrote it, so I just wanted to make it clearer (this also doubles when they see her afterwards- they're viewing her as a spirit, not realizing she's actually there).  
> Drop a comment to let me know how you like it!


	16. You'll Then Work on, Because You Must

                Though saving Thomas from a near scrape with death did lessen the danger of the entire mission, Mikasa couldn’t help but think of the crowds of both humans and titans, hindering the majority of her process. Ducking and weaving in between shrieking civilians was filling her with a sense of unhealthy recognition and was severely damaging her will to press forward. If she even closed her eyes to consciously blink, she would be lost to visions of broken homes and lost mothers. As if it were second nature, she slides out of the way of a grasping hand, the titan’s large eyes gaping down at her, confused at its lively meal.

                _Like I would go down so easily._ These fights were nothing but child’s play, and she compared them immediately to her previous skirmishes with witches. With titans, there was an obvious, predictable pattern- avoid capture and aim for the back of their neck. Even missing the mark yielded some sort of advantage, whether effectively killing it by mistake or slowing it down. With the witches- She pauses her train of thought to run up the titan’s hand, as it gave her a direct path to its weakness.

                With the witches, it was all about stratagem- on-the-spot plans followed by immediate action. She had been lucky in her previous encounter, but not so lucky in her first encounter. Though she didn’t have much data to actually get a hold of what witches were like in general- A titan with a permanently open mouth slammed its hands against the concrete, raising the ground underneath her in shard-like fragments. The movements she made in order to dispatch it was identical to the ones she had just made.

                So far, the two witches she’d encountered were completely individual, with nothing but the basics holding them to be the same species. Tilting her head to the side, she surveys the area, finding Eren and Armin’s group to be farther behind than she’d anticipated. Had she been going too fast? That seemed unlikely, as she was running on foot and they were overhead. Squinting through the midday sun, she finds them all having paused, in the midst of a discussion.

                _What, is this Eren just lazier? What could they possibly be t-_ Thomas had bent in half, his arms wrapped tightly around his center, shaking his head back and forth. Though she couldn’t hear anything from this distance, Mikasa had a rather justified belief that he was openly sobbing. Mina’s shoulders rose and fell in turn, and she quivered like a wet leaf in the wind. Yet another boy from the training squad seemed shaken up, though he had separated himself from the group, dealing with whatever trauma he’d experienced by himself.

                The sun beat heavily upon the crown of her head, and everything shifted into place in some place in between her mind and her eyes. Without another conscious thought, her feet pack down the dirt, one after another, desperation coupling with horrid, horrid realization. As if matching her pace, the titan headed for their group hurried, eyes locked onto the closest targets- both Armin and Eren.

                Mina is the first to notice, raising a shaking finger in its direction, though unable to move toward it. The unrecognizable boy begins the slightest of a scream, drawing the three remaining soldiers’ eyes. Surprisingly, Armin is quickest in action, propelling himself forward with some sort of battle cry. His leap is too short for such a distance, Mikasa realizes, and she latches onto two walls, dropping and reeling herself back in, imitating the usage of gas, gaining more ground.

                Its nails just barely skimmed Armin’s uniform before it received the harsh thud of her boots, followed by the stinging of her swords. The head pitched forward, dissolving until the skull collided with the housing complex, cracking down the center and beginning to crumble further. Hopping up the pieces, not bothering with her maneuver gear, Mikasa is slightly out of breath when she reaches the group. She takes a few deep breathes to calm herself before proceeding.

                “What do you all think you’re doing?” It’s a simple question, and a delicately-chosen one, as the emotional stability of their little group seemed to have plummeted in the past hour and a half. She hears the sound of metal meeting protesting brick behind her, finding Armin slowly pulling himself up the building. He, too, seems at a loss for words. “You’re all soldiers, you can’t sit by and watch as the civilians get picked-“ Eren slammed his head into her forehead, none too gently. She grunts, digging her heel into the roof, holding her place steady.

                “What do _you_ think you’re doing, Mikasa?” Mikasa recoils, staring at his suddenly angry expression. Of all the things she had expected, this hadn’t been one of them. “Why are you just hanging around us? You should be with the rearguard, protecting the civilians, too! You can’t just prioritize our lives over theirs!”

                “I finished my business with the rearguard- to which I am free to assist whoever I can.” She can feel the prick of tears underneath her eyes and she can’t help the slowly-developing frown. Her voice wavers when she speaks. “We have trained all this time to become soldiers, not to cower at the first sight of danger-“

                “It’s not my fault that you keep getting to the titans before we do-“ Eren’s argument is cut short by Armin’s soft voice.

                His eyes are wide, his bottom lip firmly held between his teeth, the slightest of blood drawn from it. As if he weren’t truly looking at them, his gaze seemed far away, analyzing something unseen. His head tilts toward her, and something in her heart melts, some caring instinct that was engaged when she sees the horrified look on his face. “Two years in the future…” His lips move, though it’s almost as if he’s not speaking, with the quiet tone of his voice. “Two years in the future, Eren’s dead, isn’t he, Mikasa?”

                Her heart freezes and she finds that she is unable to move a muscle. Eren, not understanding the situation, only steps back from the two of them, beginning to question what had transpired prior to the mission. “Armin, what the hell are you even talking about?” If it weren’t for the gravity carried in his voice, he would’ve laughed directly in his friend’s face.

                Armin finds whatever confirmation he needed in her terrified eyes, and begins to shudder, some strange, multi-faceted emotion crossing his face, something she can’t identify. “… I am, too, aren’t I?”

                The words spur her back to life and, with watery eyes, she looks away from him. “Now isn’t the time to talk about that, Armin.” Her voice is steely and strong, as she wants it to be. “The… The only  important thing is that you’re not going to die today.”

                “We’re not going to even be part of the fifteen survivors in the future, are we?”

                “I’ll be damned if you won’t be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay- I was participating in Ramadan until yesterday and had to abstain from violence/profanity.  
> Any questions? Please direct them to attackonpuellamagi.tumblr.com (The questions help flesh out further timelines)


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